Welcome to Democracy-ish.

I'm Danielle Moody.

And I'm Woodrowthalie.

We are closing out,

2023.

One of the most exhausting, enlightening, expanding years of note. This is our wrap-up show.

So we're just going to folks be asking each other questions back and forth about what are highlights,

low lights, and how we got through this year.

So, Woj, 2023.

If you had to, okay, if you had to give 2023 a one word name, what would it be?

Eventful. Oh, that's good. And I'm going to use the analogy of my flooded basement. Okay, so here we go. The year starts off. I get a little bit of money.

And I'm like, how should I use this money as a self-employed writer? And I'm like, you know,

I have like 800 kids. Let's redo the

basement. So you redo the basement and you're like, oh, this cost a lot more than I thought. This is

insane. And then you talk to other parents. They're like, yep, whatever they charge you would cost

like more. So you do you redo the basement? The basement's going well. Kids are happy. And then,

thanks to climate change and unpredictable weather in Virginia, despite me being prepared and putting

two sub pumps in and doing everything that I could, I go downstairs and flooding. So as

we're recording this, the entire carpet that I spent so much time putting in is being ripped apart and everything's

being dried. And I sit there and I go, this is a great metaphor for the year because I sit there

and I go, I can't even be that pissed off because I expected it to happen. I prepared for it.

It's still got effed up. It's still going to cost money. But everyone's alive.

...