Commas

I love commas.  I find that they show up everywhere in my writing like little, dangly friends that inhabit my sentences.  Our current use of language is killing off the comma, as well as the semi-colon, a close relation to the comma; it's a pity to see them go.  Between journalism and txt msgs, there isn't much hope for them.  On my cell phone I have to cycle through an exclamation mark and period before I can insert a commma. 

I had a professor in college tell me that my writing was very "Victorian"--by which he meant long, thick sentences with liberal comma and semi-colon use.  He didn't mean it as a compliment.  So, ever since then, when I write I go back and remove half of the commas and end up with approximately the correct amount.