Realm of the Lint Queen

Some twenty-mumble years ago, I was working at Nortel, which was, at the time, undergoing a massive shift from Macs to PCs. As each of our new computers was connected to the network, it had to be assigned a name, so my friendly neighborhood IT support guy asked me what I’d like my PC to be called.

Backstory:

At the time I was roughly the same size and shape as I am now; however, I had completely bought into the idea that (a) my shape was Not Ok and (b) wearing black makes one seem slimmer.

So I wore a Lot of Black — you’d have thought I was a wannabe Perky Goth given my wardrobe choices at the time.

And black fabrics collect a lot of lint.

More Backstory:

I have lots of little mottos/phrases that are sort of “rules to live by” (more accurately, they’re more like “rules to trot out in defense of doing something you were planning on doing anyway, but…).

These include:

• “You won’t get if you don’t ask,”
• “Sometimes Bad Things just happen” (this in response to “everything happens for a reason, which I hate), and
• “If you can’t beat ’em, own ’em.”

Ok, enough backstory — what happened?

When asked what I wanted my computer to be named, nothing extremely clever immediately popped into my mind, so I looked down (engaging contemplative mode) and noticed All The Lint on my black pants and shirt.

Remembering that “if you can’t beat ’em, own ’em,” I said: “Well, I seem to be Queen of the Lint, so let’s call my Lint Queen.

And soon thereafter I grabbed the domain name lintqueen.com and the rest, as they say, is herstory.

It actually has worked out rather well, as over the years I have picked up quite a few crafts, some of which (like sewing and knitting) are in the fiber-arts category. As there’s no possible way I could wear or use everything I make, I also sell these crafts at The Realm of the Lint Queen store (and local craft fairs too).

Upon seeing my wares and hearing the domain name, people often assume that “Lint Queen” was an intentional craft reference.

And who am I to correct them?