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As you may or may not know, I'm a stickler for grammar and factual accuracy. If you notice any errors on my site, you'd make my day by letting me know: corrections > |
ABOUT ME : NICO MEDINA
Welcome to the new site, my temple of good-natured narcissism! I'm Nico Medina. Not the 25-yr-old hottish Argentinean soccer player Nico Medina, but the twenty-five-year-old professional copyeditor and YA novelist Nico Medina. I was born and raised in Orlando but now live in New York City with my boyfriend, Billy Merrell, and our overweight, sneezy pug, Paisley.
Though we've been in New York for over three years now, I still consider myself to be a Florida boy in many ways. For one thing, I have an almost incurable and impenetrable love for fast food and chain restaurants. I know, I know, it's all bad and nasty for you and the small businessman, blah, blah, blah, but where else but Chili's has an unending happy hour, free chips and salsa at the bar, and that sumptuous fajita pita?
If anyone knows, please let me know. There are no Chili's in New York! Help!!!
Moving right along past the nasty-food habits, I'll go ahead and give you the basics.
I was born on June 5, 1982, in Orlando, Florida. I've got two sisters, one who came before me in 1979, one in 1986. I think it's safe to say that being the bratty middle child (and only boy), I probably made their lives hell for a while. But we're all cool now! Same goes for my parents. My dad's where I get the "Medina" from—he's half-Puerto Rican, half-Panamanian. My mom was born and raised in Orlando (she rode a bike in the Walt Disney World opening-day parade in 1971), and she's where I get my wordiness from—she's a professional copyeditor, too, and has been correcting my grammar for as long as I can remember.
From first to eighth grade, I went to a Catholic school in Downtown Orlando called St. James, where I was not rapped on the knuckles by evil nuns when I made a mistake on the board. I went to a public high school, Winter Park High (same as the character Jonathan in the book), where I had an amazing group of friends (mostly girls). I wasn't out in high school, but I certainly wasn't the "straightest" boy. To tell the truth, I think the eight years of Catholic school must've prevented even the idea that I was gay from entering my brain...
...but even eight years of Catholic school was no match for college.
I went to the University of Florida in fall of 2000, and had to share this awful, stinking dorm room my first year with a guy who loved to microwave Chef Boyardee without opening the windows and lived for playing on his computer from 7pm to 7am on the weekends. It was in this ideal living situation that I started becoming aware of my immutable gayness, and I began coming out to people in November. Fun, fun. (Actually, I'm very fortunate to have such incredible friends and family, because the process was very easy for me.)
So UF was great. (There is just not enough space to describe how great UF was....) I started out as an architecture student, but after pulling countless all-nighters and becoming very sickly and generally going insane, I decided it wasn't for me and switched to sociology halfway through the year. Which was the best decision ever. Though it was a hell of a lot of reading.
Billy and I got together toward the end of our sophomore years, and by the beginning of our senior year, 2003, Billy's first book (Talking in the Dark) was coming out! After graduating in 2004, we took a two-week trip to Argentina, then moved to New York—me to start working in children's publishing (I'd worked at this really horrid company called Gleim Publications during college where free soda and pretzels were listed under "benefits," but I loved the actual work despite the nuttiness of the company, which is a whole 'nother story!) and Billy to start toward his MFA in Poetry from Columbia.
I know I skipped over so much just then, but I think it's time for some Top Five lists... It's just easier and more fun, and I can add to them later.
I love...
1. Drunken springtime Sunday brunch, alfresco.
2. Watching my 20-pound pug play with 200-pound bull mastiffs.
3. Giftcards.
4. Traveling—anywhere! Argentina, Panama, Paris, Chicago, or even suburban Pennsylvania! (Give me a rental car and a hotel room, and I'd spend a weekend anywhere.)
5. Music that surprises the shit out of me. (Thank you, Trent Reznor, for Year Zero.)
I can't stand...
1. When people say "This is a picture of *blank* and I." ... It's "*blank* and me!"
2. When people underpay at group dinners.
3. When people sit in the middle seat on the subway, then spread their legs to take up the other two seats.
4. Low water pressure.
5. Cluelessness.
If I could dance to any song at a club, it would be...
1. "Posthuman," by Marilyn Manson
2. "Cherry Lips," by Garbage
3. "Beautiful," by Goldfrapp
4. "Lose Control," by Kylie Minogue
5. "Stutter," by Elastica
Coolest vacation locations
1. Salema, Algarve, Portugal - May 2007 (hooray for beer and beautiful beaches, where you don't have to do anything!)
2. Paris - Every time I've been! (The most beautiful city in the world—no other way to describe it.)
3. Iguazu Falls, Argentina - July 2004 (Like Niagara Falls X 2, — all the tacky tourist shit + the fact that it's a national park that's also a rainforest.)
4. Boquete, Panama - Spring 1996 (Mountains, streams, misty rainforests, and Swiss-looking villages.)
5. Jungfraujoch, Switzerland - Summer 1997 (Highest-altitude train station in Europe, at 13,000 feet; picture-perfect postcard vistas, snow in July.)
Best moments (off the top of my head)
1. April 1, 2007: When Billy proposed to me in bed over poetry and a sausage-egg McMuffin. (I said "yes," of course—I just call him my "boyfriend" because I hate the word "fiance.")
2. When I had to pause in my valedictorian speech, because I'd made four thousand people laugh and applaud so loudly.
3. The first night I moved into my very first apartment, sophomore year of college—lots of drinking...etcetera, pouring-down rain, friend flashing passing cars, flirting with a major crush, and okay, yeah...a little vomit at the end.
4. The night I got my book deal finalized and celebrated with champagne and absinthe (hey, it's legal now) on an open-air back porch in the middle of spring in the Upper West Side of NYC. Perfection.
5. The first time I went snorkeling, when I was a little kid, in the Florida Keys.
That's all for now. Maybe more Top Five lists later! But not now. I'm tiiiired. |
