celebrating our differences

i have been thinking about people lately and how much i dislike them. okay, that isn't true. but i was thinking about how often it seems that the very characteristic that you like about someone ends up being the same thing that drives you crazy. for instance, i have this friend, that i will call krista (in the hope that she won't recognize herself if she reads this blog). and krista is one of those people that just says what is on her mind, without hesitation. i love this about her - you can always count on her to be completely honest with you and you never have to guess what she is thinking. the other side of this, however, (the part that i don't love so much) is that i have heard the following statements come out of her mouth (again, without hesitation): "i just don't like fat people" and "weren't you mad at the guy who gave you cervical cancer?" (said to a girl who had just finished chemotherapy). and once, she started a story just like this - "so the other day Dan and I were having sex on the bathroom floor..." what made this funny to me was that the story had nothing to do with sex, it was about the hardware she had selected for her new bathroom. while i do realize that krista is an extreme example, i think that most people are like this. my husband is another example. i love that he is reserved and even-tempered, he is very unlikely to offend anyone or make an ass of himself (opposites attract, i suppose) and he hardly ever gets upset or mad about anything. the other side of that, which of course drives me crazy, is that he doesn't get excited about or really enjoy participating in gossip. i can come home with the absolute best of stories (like "you won't believe what my friend krista said...") and the most i get out of him is "really?". but i suppose that is what girl friends are for and honestly, i think girls are better at talking about people anyway. i used to feel bad about gossiping until a good friend of mine said that i should think of it as celebrating our differences. and really, isn't that what it is?