Today I took the bus into Seatte for a press conference at the Pacific Science Center. (You can read the news here.)  The day was beautiful, sunny albeit slightly cool, and I enjoyed standing at the bus stop. No, really, I did.

I took a Dramamine so I could read on the bus, and the trip into downtown Seattle passed quickly and pleasantly. At Westlake, I decided that because of the gorgeous weather and because I had a half hour before the doors opened, I’d walk instead of taking the final bus. Yeah, not such a bright idea, because I hadn’t realized quite how far it was. (I hereby admit my faulty reasoning. Never again will I say to myself, “Six minutes on the bus? How far could that possibly be?”)

After the press conference, I stayed at the museum to look around (with the blessing of the PR people). I’ll probably post some articles later on about the museum, so I won’t talk about it at much length here.

The insect area was a major highlight. I mean, a monster-sized, moving emperor scorpion?

And the tropical butterfly house, which was one of the main reasons I’d wanted to visit the center:

At some point as I stood pointing my camera at all that ephemeral beauty, I thought, “This is why I quit my job–so I can stand in the middle of a tropical butterfly house on a weekday afternoon.”

I visited a butterfly garden in college on a day I was depressed and not doing well, and then wrote an article about it for the college newspaper. I remembered that today, which was stupid because it brought all the current bad feeling rushing back. That’s the thing: Once in awhile you forget or get engaged with something that keeps the gray away, but that almost makes it worse when it creeps back around the edges or crashes back in.

And butterflies do not live long. They’re fragile. You see torn wings and beautiful corpses in butterfly houses, along with all the vibrant, fluttering creatures. So I was a little sad when I left the butterfly house, and kind of frustrated, and a bit overwhelmed again.

I had also been excited about the dinosaur exhibit, but it was anticlimactic. I grew up visiting the Denver Museum of Natural History (now the Denver Museum of Nature and Science), which has an incredibly cool hall of dinosaur skeletons (well, I think they’re life-sized replicas of the skeletons, not the actual bones, but still). The PSC has moving models that maybe appeal more to kids who have seen Jurassic Park, but I missed towering skeletons.

Yeah, I’m not scared of you, Allosaurus.

I wandered through the outdoor Water Works section of the center, which my dad would have totally loved.

Then I left the museum itself and wandered through Seattle Center looking for food and ended up eating bad yakisoba on 2nd Ave. I had trouble finding a bus stop, finally got back to Westlake, then had more trouble. The bus stop I needed was closed for repairs, and a sign directed me to go north. I walked five blocks north, never found the street I needed, and finally consulted a map thoughtfully placed in a kiosk on the sidewalk (because of course I didn’t have one). Yeah, I’d actually needed the street two blocks SOUTH of where I’d been. More tramping around. Stopped at Borders to use the bathroom, wandered around looking at books, but wasn’t interested (!). Finally collapsed onto the crowded express bus back to Lynnwood. Got home, managed to just barely stay awake until 9 to verify that I wasn’t scheduled to teach tonight.