So what's this all about?

Simple enough. This page is a collection of the random things I see and overhear on a daily basis.

It's a long story, how it all got started, and even longer when you include how I started writing this all down, and how it eventually became a webpage.

But in brief, I live in Berkeley, a rather unusual town, and I have a habit of really noticing my surroundings, be it writing on a freeway overpass, or the conversation the other people in the elevator are having. Does this mean I'm probably pretty nosy? Maybe. But some of the things I kept overhearing were so comical or tragic or cool that I couldn't help wanting to have a place to share them or save them. And some of them I couldn't help commenting on, so those are my remarks below the dividing bar in each entry.

So that's that.

Why 'In Passing?'

Because overheard.com was taken.

No, honestly, overheard or evesdropping couldn't incorporate all of the aspects I'm trying to include here, such as scenes, or graffiti or moments in general. I started saying that I'd heard something in passing... and I decided that I liked it, and that furthermore, everything was in passing, was fleeting, when you thought about it on the grand scale of things.

As for who I am... they call me Eve. Not my real name, but there was a "name your webmistress" contest here a while back, and "Eve S. Dropper" was the winning entry. I'm the narrator of this story of sorts, and though it's about my world, right now it isn't about me. I started out being somewhat anonymous so that I wouldn't have to worry about people in class being afraid of being overheard by me, and I've just kind of stuck with it. For those who are desperately curious, I'm a female college student with a quirky sense of humor, and the ability to listen to several conversations at once.

Each entry here is the snippet of someone's story, a two second window into someone else's life. So read the page. Laugh a little, shake your head, or just sit and think for a moment. Pass through the pages, pass the link onto a friend, or if you'd like, start listening to the people who you pass by... it's all in passing.

A while back, the Daily Cal interviewed me for an article, and it turned out pretty well.

Contact me at eve@inpassing.org