Initial Post

This is the initial post for Lair of the Gryphon. I'm thinking I'll do regular daily updates, whether or not I have anything interesting to say. I had a blog previous to this, but it had no schedule for updating, and it wound up so that all my recent posts would start with an apology for not updating in a while, and eventually I abandoned it. I'm beginning to understand the importance of self-discipline, even in things done for pleasure.

But more influential in my decision to finally drop my old blog, I think, was the fact that I used a pseudonym, and my audience was a variety of family members and people I felt very open with, so I wound up writing things that I deemed alright for a select few people, while also hoping for it to expand to a wider audience. The combination of a need for privacy, and a desire for the blog to grow and spread, wound up having me feel torn about the content I should be displaying.

I think it's better to have clear intentions from the get-go, even if it's less cool and secretive, so this blog will be public and intended for all audiences.

My real-world name is Gryphon. The name of this blog was meant as a slight play on the fact that my name comes from the mythological hybrid of lion and eagle. I thought of calling it "Gryphon Lair" and "Gryphon's Lair", but I felt the latter implied an individual too much, while the former implied a species. I wanted the duality, so that's how I made the decision I did. I still think the name sounds kind of long, but whatever.

Yesterday I finished the book 100 Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It took me 8 months to read. In the time it took me to finish it, I read The Shining, by Stephen King, Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, Grendel, by John Gardner, and Slaughterhouse-5, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I started the book on a Greyhound bus on my journey to see my long-distance girlfriend of three years, who would soon be my ex, and I came within ten or so pages of finishing it on a Greyhound bus coming back from my journey to see my father, whom I'd just seen for the first time in eleven years.

I probably would have finished it on that bus, but some douchebag was getting drunk and rambling about his fratboy capers in the seat next to me, which made it hard to read. So I lost my real-world symbolism of starting the book on a journey that would initiate my deep, inner curse of what I call dislocation, or what the book would call solitude, and then finishing it on the return from a trip that was also to see someone whom I had long anticipated meeting. I hope I haven't cursed myself by not concluding my solitary journey correctly.

I used my old blog primarily to complain about books, but I suppose if this one is for the general public, I ought not hit up too many spoilers. I'm tempted to publish my thoughts, but I won't. I've already written a review and published it somewhere else. Maybe if there's a private setting on this blog, or way to hide text so you have to click on it to see it or something, then I could post my review. Or I could just post a warning in bold not to read past a certain point. Maybe I'll do that, and just copy/paste the review sometime. But right now I feel this is a good length for a first post.

If anyone from my old blog is reading this, don't worry. This won't devolve into a book analysis blog. I can't finish a book every day...