Indoor Sun Shoppe
It's not unusual during the wintertime for depressed people to stagger into Fremont's Indoor Sun Shoppe, plop down in front of a 10,000-lux light box for a half-hour, soak in the tropical surroundings (the palm trees, the fig trees, the heat), and then head back out, a bit perkier, into the gloom. Steve Murphy, the store's owner, is not exactly sure how it all works—something about the bright light moving through one's retina and then on into one's hypothalamus, where Murphy believes it then triggers serotonin production. In any case, it seems to help. "I love being here," said a depressed woman who had come in for a serotonin hit on a recent Tuesday. "It feels awesome." She was standing under a 3,000-lux ceiling lamp that, Murphy said, delivered light equivalent to 300 candles. This made the depressed woman happy—not just the light, but the idea that she could re-create its power by placing 300 candles around her apartment. "Yeah," Murphy said, "if you could breathe." (160 N Canal St, 634-3727.) ELI SANDERS

The Twilight Exit
Perpetual sunset: It sounds like heaven, but for patrons of the Twilight Exit, it's a reality. On the northern wall of this wonderfully low-key bar-with-food it lives—a glorious, six-by-eight-foot, photo-realistic mural of a coastline at sunset. In the upper-left corner, palm fronds extend into the frame from an unseen palm tree, running the breadth of the mural is a lightly breaking wave, and all of it is bathed in the golden-orange light of the Malibu of your dreams. Spending six hours drinking in front of the Twilight Exit sunset is the next best thing to being there. (2501 E Madison St, 324-7462.) DAVID SCHMADER

Thomas Kinkade "Painter of Light" Gallery
For when God said "Let there be light," He didn't just mean lumens, He meant human goodness, including family gatherings by the hearth and pink spring flowers and not sinning, and that's what Thomas Kinkade means, too. He calls himself the Painter of Light and he adds a Jesus fish and "John 3:16" to his signature, and he paints beautiful scenes of beautiful things. This is why he is the best-selling artist on earth, and why you can't buy his paintings at the mall, but you can buy the copies that his company makes. "It's called 'luminism,'" says the man selling the copies at the Thomas Kinkade Gallery at Westlake Center. "It's the way the Sistine Chapel was painted." It's a helpful explanation, because not everybody studies art and not everyone sees the connection between Kinkade's paintings and Michelangelo's ceiling, even though it's, you know, obvious. Financing is available, so it's not only rich snobs who can afford The Light, which costs about $3,000 for the best copies. In each one, it's around dinnertime. The trees and flowers surrounding the house are pretty, but you can't see in the house, so you have to imagine how warm it is inside by looking at the gold light in the windows. Every one of the houses is on fire with golden goodness. (400 Pine St, #306, 625-9945.) JEN GRAVES

Under the Showgirls Marquee
I am standing on the First Avenue sidewalk, gaping up at the marquee, hundreds of lights throbbing around one luscious word: "Showgirls." To those who walk or drive past, I might be a Christian contemplating sin. Or a pilgrim, arrived from some pornless world like Saudi Arabia or Mississippi. I'm neither. I just want to shake a vicious case of seasonal affective disorder. Alas, strip clubs can only provide temporary relief for permanent problems. Hot naked women on a stage won't help me get a hot woman home. That euphoric rush isn't real joy; it's the buzz from marked-up sodas. So, too, does the therapeutic glow of these lights fade... after an hour has passed. From here there are only two directions to go: Into the strip club or away from it. A place with more light and a roof? Or a place that is dark and rain soaked? I follow the light. (DĂ©jĂ  Vu Showgirls, 1510 First Ave, 342-9160.) THOMAS FRANCIS

QFC in the Middle of the Night
There are other grocery stores you can spend odd hours in, but I go to the huge QFC on Capitol Hill. The cookie area, the cheese piles, the cold bottles, the apple pyramids, the frozen seafood vats, the glass case of prepared meats, the corner of butter and water, the part with all the pillows, the temperature-controlled walk-in wine chamber, ice cream avenue, the newsstand—there is so much to see and do here you can't possibly get bored. And the night staff is better than the day staff. Sometimes they play their music very loud. It's the perfect place to endure your insomnia, and you don't have to buy a thing. (417 Broadway E, 328-6920, open 24 hours.) CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

Lamps Plus
It's the age-old question: Lamps Plus what? After visiting the Lamps Plus outlet store in Bellevue, I have the answer: Lamps Plus more fucking lamps. From the forest of floor lamps to the downpour of chandeliers and the walls covered with outdoor-torch mounts, Lamps Plus is so densely packed with light it could be God's colon. Along with the light comes heat: A stroll from the torchère grotto to the hall of halogens left my forehead moist. Go, bask, and wear little. (11919 NE Eighth St, Bellevue, 425-688-1033.) DAVID SCHMADER

Field Lights
There are 200 sports fields in Seattle. But only 27 of them are lit after dark. That may explain why a 2004 city council study found that tons of demand for time on Seattle sports fields is going unmet. Seattle's Co-Rec soccer league, for example, had to play 2,800 games—more than half of its weeknight schedule—outside of town that year. The need is even more pronounced during Seattle's rainy season when the dark nights make the giant glowing floodlights necessary oases for all Seattleites, not just the soccer jocks. (Get your late-night exercise at some choice lighted parks: Genesee Park and Playfield, 46th Ave S and S Genesee St; Hiawatha Playfield, California Ave SW and SW Lander St; Lower Woodland Park, Green Lake Way N and N 50th St; Bobby Morris Playfield, 11th Ave E and E Pine St; Georgetown Playfield, Corson Ave S and S Homer St.) JOSH FEIT

Get Pulled Over By a Cop
No light is brighter than the one beamed into your car after a cop's radar catches you cruising 20 miles per hour over the speed limit. I know, having been stopped by the police a number of times. I promise that if you make a habit out of speeding around the city's side streets you'll eventually get caught, and the police floodlight will brighten not only every shadow of your automobile, but also that miserable darkness in your heart. (Anytime, anywhere.) MEGAN SELING