I dreamed about my Aunt B last night.  But I've always been closest to L (just ask any typist).

I dreamed that programmer Mike Strosaker was buoyed by my dream journal, vowing to "continue to use that most mysterious of characters, in all its wondrous glory, when the pause of the period is too pregnant and that of the comma is not pregnant enough, when the interplay, the tension, between two independent clauses is so overt that their separation does them a disservice."  I was awakened by my own tears of joy.

I dreamed that my DNA contained strands of the legendary two-tailed, two-dotted semicolon.

I dreamed I met the mischievous fairy Puck.  He hadn't read A Midsummer Night's Dream but was delighted to know that Shakespeare had written about him.  I learned that his real name, in Welsh, is Pwca.  I mispronounced it "pica," which was perfectly understandable given my typesetting background.  He pronounced his name "Pooka."  His physical resemblance to me was uncanny.  It was like looking in a mirror.

[Illustration based upon a coal drawing of Pwca by a Welsh peasant in the 1880s.]

I dreamed I had the worst case of Semicolon Cancer in recorded history.

Later, I dreamed my playground had been taken over by miscreant semicolons.

I dreamed I was dying.*

*"The semicolon is indeed a dying punctuation mark." —The Disposable Chronicles

I dreamed I was a bench-warmer.*

*"Semicolons are the bench-warmers of punctuation marks.  You only play them when you need to." —The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar

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I dreamed I screamed hesitation!

I dreamed I discovered a long-forgotten scrapbook.  In it was a poem by Tomas Ekström:

I dreamed I was a miscreant.

I dreamed they called me "The Terminator."

I dreamt of the Maestro.*

*"Henry James is the maestro of the semicolon." —Truman Capote

I went to bed feeling haunted by Kurt Vonnegut, whose hateful words echoed in my head: "I have never used semicolons.  They don't do anything, don't suggest anything."

When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed I was in college.  The class was Freshman Composition.  No one there knew how to use me.  But they liked me.  I was mysterious... I looked important and well-educated.  They used me over and over again.  Yes, I was in all the wrong places.  And yes, I would ultimately be circled or crossed out with red ink.  But there were so many of me!  I was EVERYWHERE!  I woke up refreshed.  I had glimpsed my own immortality.

I dreamed of "limpid creatures of limitless tact and tenderness who would discuss with me a semicolon as if it were a point of honor—which, indeed, a point of art often is," just as in THE FOREST FOR THE TREES by Betsy Lerner.

Then, in a state of half-sleep, I assembled a "mutual appreciation" list: Madeleine "I Love Semicolons" L'Engle, Anne Frank, John "We Love Semicolons for Tightness, Terseness, and Fast Pace" McPhee, Jorge Luis Borges, Walt Whitman.

I dreamed of emoticons all night.  At one point, I heard Noelle Cleary marveling, "Who would've thought we'd someday be expressing moods with colons, semicolons, and parentheses?" (just as she did in THE ART AND POWER OF BEING A LADY).  Then I heard Nancy Kress saying that "Although the semicolon will never replace 'I love you' as a means of stirring readers' feelings, punctuation nonetheless has a useful role to play in indicating emotion," just as she discussed in WRITE GREAT FICTION.

I dreamed I became enamored over Eric Schlosser, who whispered in my ear, "I care about every semicolon, every word, and every comma," just as he said in THE NEW JOURNALISM by Robert Boyynton.

Then I dreamed about "Henry James' dictum that the true measure of civility was the proper use of the semicolon," as noted in BORGES: THE SELECTED FICTIONS.

I dreamed again that I was a period.  This dream took me beyond the realm of punctuation.  I was a period of history.  But I was the Stone Age.  No one was literate.  I woke up tired.

During a nap later in the day, I dreamed of a man named Franco Gull, sprawled on a sofa, whose "lips produced a pained semicolon" as he considered "some very serious issues," just as in THERAPY by Jonathan Kellerman.

I dreamed of correction fluid.  Need I say more?

Then I dreamed that Michael Kinsley was advising people, "it is best not to use semicolons, as they can be thought pretentious," as he did in BOBOS IN PARADISE by David Brooks.  I woke up saying, "PRETENTIOUS?  Moi?"

I dreamed I was "semicolonial": nominally independent but actually under foreign domination.  I was Quebec.

Later that night, I dreamed that Al Franken called me "exotic punctuation," as he did in THE TRUTH (WITH JOKES).