my punctuational crush

I tend to use commas quite often when writing. And, after some reflection and soul searching, I have to admit that I think I might be in love.

Because of all the punctuation out there, none can compare to a comma. Periods signify an end and, for the most part, I don't care much for endings. Endings are always tinged with sadness. A period is sentence death, and even when you didn't particularly like the sentence you just read, death is still pretty much a bummer.

Sure you can reread the sentence, but it's never the same as that first time. You know what to expect. The excitement and thrill is gone. Sure, the familiarity is comforting, but it's been done before.

But with commas, you know that things aren't quite over yet. You and the sentence still have one more moment together. There's still time for you to be surprised or thrilled or intrigued. Things are going to go on...at least for a while. Which is also why I'm quite partial to the three periods in a row...a close cousin to the comma.

Of course, often you'll come to find that by prolonging the sentence your time was simply wasted. Nothing new was learned. It was a stupid sentence anyway, so why bother dragging it out? The relationship was over long before the comma.

But still, I love commas.

Exclamation points don't excite me. Too much emotional outpouring. It's tiring. And I find question marks to be rather whiny.

Colons signify that a list is coming, and I really don't care much for lists. And I just have never gotten the whole semicolon thing.

But with commas, there's still a chance for something to happen. I'm waiting for the day that some author realizes this and writes a whole book with nothing but commas. No periods. Just one long, never-ending whirlwind of a sentence. I would love that...unless the story sucked, that is. Then I'd probably be a little bit pissed.

But that's more the author's fault, so it's really not fair to blame the comma.

Basically, I, think, commas, are, great,