Bruce pops onstage for a song with The Gaslight Anthem. (Via Ben, who rightly calls it "nostalgia rock overload.")

When I was younger I would sometimes be seized, usually at night, by sudden intense depressions I usually thought of as "darkness." I haven't felt that way in a long time, not since before I was married, and I'm certain a lot of that has to do both with Jaimee and with the way my life has generally improved in all categories since I was younger. But tonight I feel something like that feeling, except totally benign, a kind of overpowering sense of nostalgia that has been caused in varying degrees by:

* my high school reunion, in process tonight a mere 600 miles from my current location;
* the fifth anniversary of my cousin Andrew's death, which puts his phantom self as old this year as I was when he died;
* a new diet that seems to be having immediate and positive effects on my energy and concentration;
* yesterday's rereading of Jimmy Corrigan;
* some eerily on-the-nose "nostalgia rock" recommended by Jacob B;
* my obsessive attention to the youth rebellion in Iran and hope at least for one night that the arc of history bends towards Utopia.

I feel nostalgic and hypercontemplative, but not sad, except insofar as we all only live life once, and the portions are too small.