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Hello. This is Shaun speaking. Typing? Whatever. That’s me up there in the slideshow with my reporter face on. It’s cute, isn’t it? What can I say? I take my good looks from the good parts of my daddy and mommy and I have to say that I’m one awesomely, über-cute baby toddler big boy bad ass. I’ve taken over Dad’s computer because I can and he’s not around because he’s sitting in the corner, his legs up with a book lying his lap reading some book about a little person—someone who’s a little bigger than me, I’m told—with hairy feet and who wears a ring and fights a dragon. He tells me that he’ll read it to me when I’m older and can sit still longer than for a few minutes, but I’m all like, “Dad, I can type seventy-two words per minute. I’ll read books when I learn to read. Until then, lemme just get on the computer and blog my thoughts.”

And what thoughts does an almost-two-year-old me have? Well, first of all, I noticed that my feet are funny and cute and—supposedly, according to my father who gives them a sniff whenever he’s in the process of changing my diaper (I think because it makes him laugh that I laugh, but I only give him those chuckles because I know it means so much to him to hear me laugh)—stink.

Secondly, I’ve noticed that my dad has a lot of books. And I mean A LOT of books. Now most people think they have a lot of books when they fill up one shelf space. And that it’s over doing it when you fill up an entire shelf. Dad has more than that. More than three.

Your average almost-two-year-old might say a gazillion (actually, your average almost-two-year-old would just babble some nonsense, but whatever, but I give all my peers the benefit of the doubt) shelves, but it’s less than that. Way less than that. But, to be honest, I think my dad wants to hit that some day. He just might.

Now the word hoarder gets thrown around a lot these days, but that’s not too far from the truth with Dad. He  likes to call himself a book hunter—which is like a treasure hunter, but one who buys his booty rather than stealing it from other people. For instance, he heard that Barnes & Noble was having their red-dot sale where everything with a red dot is half price. He also knows that since it’s the end of the year, the calendars are also on sale.

He made off with three books from the red-dot sale—Blonde Bombshell by Tom Holt, whoever that is; Martin Sloane by some guy named Michael Redhill; and Along the Watchtower by Constance Squires—for only $1.79 each. Not a single one of them is about a fox or a monkey that makes friends with a walrus named Tiny Tamoo. At least none of them have tiny people with hairy feet in them, which is an upgrade for my dad.

Along with these books, he walked away with copies of Your True Home by some guy with a funny name (Dad says to be respectable of others, but the guy’s name is Thich Nhat Hanh; it reads like something I say when I’m just making noises with my mouth to entertain my parents) and a copy of The Upanishads, which he tells me is a holy book from some ancient religion, translated by another guy with a weird sounding name—Eknath Easwaran. I asked Dad about his non-religion and the fact that he has a lot of books from various religions, but he just rubbed my head, picked me up, and blew on my tummy so it sounds like my butt, which always makes me laugh.

He bought himself a Zombie wall calendar filled with a lot of awesome zombie drawings, which would scare most almost-two-year-olds, but not me because I’m a zombie slayer at heart and I laugh in the rotting faces of the undead. He bought a One Direction calendar for my cousin, Jaylene—sure she gets eye-candy as a calendar, but you ask for a calendar of 1950s pin-ups and  you’re told you’re too young (pfft! double standards)—as well as, a Smurfalicious bookmark. Nothing for me? Gee, thanks Dad.

Oh well, I think that’s about all I have to say tonight. Maybe, if I’m good enough (or if Dad’s reading that other book about more little people with hairy feet and rings), I’ll get to post soon enough.

For Chapin City Blues, this is Shaun Damien Corona signing off. And Happy New Year!!!

P.S. I should probably note (Dad told me to) that the sale price is in store only, as it seems. If you want to pay $1.79 for the red-dot books you’ll need to have a membership and actually visit the store. It seems the website is marked at a regular (and semi-discounted) price. However, as any good book hunter in training knows, Amazon has them for a fairly reasonable price, which is why I linked to those pages in most cases. Sorry. Continue on to my dad’s rather boring posts about being a boring adult.