Lucy van Pelt is my heroine.

When she's not winning trophies for championship fussing, or creating slide shows of other Peanuts characters' shortcomings, she's dispensing five-cent psychiatry from her booth.

One of my all time favorite Peanuts comic strips is found in Peanuts Treasury*, near the end of the book -- ten pages from the back. It dates from the early 1960's.

Charlie Brown laments that he feels like he doesn't fit in.

Lucy: Have you ever seen any other worlds?

Charlie Brown: No.

Lucy: As far as you know, this is the only world there is....right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: There are no other worlds for you to live in ... right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: You were born to live in this world ... right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: WELL, LIVE IN IT THEN! Five cents please.

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It's positively Socratic!

I have to confess that I often feel more like the Charlie Brown of this strip, than like Lucy. But the beauty of Peanuts is that every character has a little bit of me in him or her.

When the Charlie Brown in me feels like this world is insane and hopeless, and like I don't belong, that's when I need the Lucy in me to remind myself: Wait just one freakin-A minute! I belong here! I was created for this nutty place, it's mine just as much as it's anyone else's and I need to be a little more like Lucy about it.

Thus the name of my blog. I'll keep living in this world. And enjoying it when it's nifty and beautiful, which life truly is, so much of the time. And i'll keep trying to make sense of it when it seems insane!

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* Peanuts Treasury. Charles M. Schulz. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. SBN 03-072585-2