BTW: Yes,

[hmpf]

I totally love semicolons FAR TOO MUCH. I know this, and I try to eradicate as many as possible (I swear, in my first drafts there often are more semicolons than there are commas and full stops), but some (always a few too many, still) invariably slip through.

I should probably mail this to beccatoria, but since I actually meant to make a post about this very topic yesterday evening, i.e. well before I received the beta'd story (with beccatoria's remark about my excessive use of semicolons) I figured I should post it here. :D