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My name is Rachel Kaufman, and I don’t understand taxes.

I thought I was doing everything right until tax season. That’s when my tax prep software told me I owed thousands of dollars for my small – by all standards – writing business. Thousands I … didn’t exactly have. Sure, I’d been saving some money to pay the IRS, and I thought it’d be enough, but there I was, scrambling to find a hefty chunk of extra cash. About $2,000 extra.

For those working at a hotel, the world literally never sleeps.

BRANDON GREEN RESOLVED to try his hand at real estate after watching a late-night infomercial in 2000. Bored with his job in sales as an IT recruiter in Silver Spring, Green paid $19.95 for Carlton Sheets’s “No Down Payment” video, and applied himself. “My first project was a complete overhaul of a house, 727 11th Street, NE,” he recalls.

Your iPhone embeds geodata into every picture you upload to Flickr. Facebook posts your address without your permission. Your E-ZPass knows where you’ve been driving.

Scary, but is this art? A show at Arlington Arts Center asks, why not?

HEY, DUMMY. Get over here and stop ruining your life.

Larry Winget, the Pitbull of Personal Development and star of A&E’s short-lived reality show, “Big Spender,” says in his new book that you – yes, you – are an idiot.

DECEPTIVELY TRICKY: That could be the best description of djembe drumming. The West African drum has only, “like, six tones [to] learn,” says student Meredith Dalton, yet combining hand movements to make complicated rhythms — while someone else is drumming a different beat — requires coordination and concentration.

WE’LL KEEP IT SHORT and sweet: Losing weight, saving money and learning a new language are old hat. This year, resolve to challenge your palate and try something new. We have a handy checklist for adventurous diners to refer to over the course of 2009, with options here for vegetarians as well as carnivores. Happy eating!

It’s like getting a present,” Christa Cothrel says a little gleefully. The Arlington resident and self-described bibliophile has been getting books in the mail for four years — free.

Joan Wendland of Sterling hasn’t bought a book in 18 months, yet her bookshelves are full. She has sci-fi and fantasy, mysteries, nonfiction, audio books and one incredible Jasper Fforde novel autographed by the author. “He doesn’t come through the States often,” Wendland, 44, says, “and when he does, there’s a huge line.”

Church Hill is changing. The historical Richmond neighborhood — site of old mansions, cast-iron work on porches, cobbled streets and the church where Patrick Henry made his impassioned cry for liberty or death — deteriorated rapidly in the mid-20th century. “Church Hill was the drug-infested shooting gallery” of Richmond, says John Johnson, president of the Church Hill Association. But in the past few decades, an aggressive historic preservation effort (and tempting tax breaks) have spurred revitalization and development.

Pizza, bulgogi, gumbo and edamame on the streets of D.C.? It seems the capital is finally nearing the tipping point for great street food.