There are, in my experience, four main classes of busking regulations (with the occasional hybrid). 

1. Permit required and pitches restricted (Venice, Florence, Siena, Bolzano)

2. Permit not required, but hazy definition of "busker" (Ferrara, Pistoia). In both cases the haziness resulted from the word "ambulante" or "ambulatory", and it doesn't matter if ten cops think you're kosher should the eleventh decide you're not.  

3. Busking allowed but street selling prohibited (Padova, Brescia, Reggio Emilia). Padova presented a loophole, that I'm curious to try elsewhere, of displaying CDs without a sign listing prices. 

4. Free-for-all (I don't want to list cities out of a superstition of jinxing them, but I'm not hoarding knowledge and would be happy to answer private inquiries) 

In general I don't bother with permits since I'm only in a given place 4-6 days and the process often takes longer than that. And, as I've discovered in the past upon getting a permit, they often forbid the good places to play. So when I get "shifted" it's easier just to find somewhere else to play. 

The key to not getting arrested is politeness and total acquiescence. I am indebted to buskers who go to jail to protect our right to perform, but I have no desire to join them. I'm hopeful I won't have to, and I've been lucky so far!

In 2007 I committed myself to four months of street performing in Italy. I started off in Rome, to great success, and went from there to Florence. Cocky and arrogant, I was rudely disabused by the local regulations on busking and street performing. I returned to Rome for a week to lick my wounds, pondering my next move.

I'm not sure what brought me to Genoa next, but I'm guessing it was a positive weather forecast. Regardless, it was hugely successful and rekindled my confidence in myself, my music, and my plan. Over the years I have spent quite a lot of time here, and the accumulation of experiences has added even more to the luster.

I love this city!

This is the end of the hard part. Once I'm on the plane to Italy I relax and roll with the punches, but until then I anxiously imagine terrible travails and plan elaborate contingencies. At least I know my pattern well enough to recognize it and realize that it not only ends, but that I know exactly when that ending will come. 

When I first started playing professionally I looked at performing on my birthday as a good omen. Gigs in early March are much rarer than in summer or fall, so I took it as a good sign to have work so early in the spring. 

Later, as a busker and a more established musician, I started taking my birthdays off. I spent 30 in Pompeii, 31 in the scenic village of Scilla, 32 on a Palestrina pilgrimage, 33 visiting Vancouver, and 34 on the Greek island of Aegina. 

This birthday I'm marking ten years as a full-time musician, a bigger personal milestone than my thirty-five years of life, and I'm celebrating both with some of my closest friends. 

I am very, very thankful. 

I was on the original Napster and migrated to Limewire when it was shut down. Then iTunes happened and suddenly music was widely available for a reasonable price; I haven't stolen music since. I've given and been given mix CDs, which have resulted in new fans on both sides of the exchange, but if I want a song I pay for it. 

As a musician, sometimes things are going well and I barely notice online sales. Other times, however, I get a notification that a check has been deposited into my account and it changes my day. I get discouraged and dragged down, and being informed that someone still cares enough to buy my music even when I'm not around can reverse the pessimistic narrative in my head. 

And I like to think I can do that for someone else. 

In 2007 I was in NYC and had tickets to see Bif Naked. I was wandering through the city that morning and dropped by the venue to make sure I could find it later, where I was pretty sure I saw her sitting on the curb in tears. I chalked it up to mistaken identity until I read the Village Voice over lunch. 

Their commentary on her career would have made me cry too. 

I wish I'd read the article first, been able to approach and tell her what asshats the music reviewers were. I hadn't, and couldn't, but I hope that my 99¢ might get that point across. 

And I feel that way every time I click "buy". 

I had a lovely time at Mardi Gras 2010 (Lombardi Gras), but as my Facebook feed fills with pictures from celebrating friends in NOLA I'm not really pulled to go to another. 

I'd love to spend some time with those friends, animated conversation over a cocktail or a bottle of wine. But parties per se aren't really my thing, and wild bacchanalia has never appealed to me. 

I've got friends who throw amazing gatherings, where I can conversation surf and enjoy the company of brilliant and interesting people. But, in my mind at least, that's a different ball game. 

Except when we're standing around a merrily burning windmill, a highlight of last year. 

Maybe I do miss it a little.  

I was six, and my parents were looking to adopt two little girls from El Salvador. In preparation they sent me to a Spanish class for children, which laid a groundwork for the rest of my life. 

As a high school freshman I went to my school's awards ceremony. I got my measly single thing, watching upper classmen walk away with mountains of accolades (three years later I'd get my turn). One award, though, caught my attention. 

Kelly Zan, a graduating friend of mine, had taken every language course the school offered. This was unprecedented, and the school had to invent an award to acknowledge her. Latin, Russian, French, and Spanish, as many years in each (2-3) as were offered. I still don't know where she found the time, and I was deeply impressed. 

A few years later I attended a great aunt's funeral, and acted as translator between her sister and my mom; living in an ethnic neighborhood as a stay at home mother, this aunt had never needed more than her native Italian and Spanish. I also met the latest generation, a four year old equally proficient in both as well as English. 

I decided "trilingual" was a pretty badass word. 

As an adult I decided to learn Italian, and there were several failed attempts before I started living in Italy each spring. Unfortunately it cannibalized my Spanish in the process, replacing one for the other. 

Deciding I couldn't retain both Spanish and Italian simultaneously, I set a goal of trilingualism that did not include Spanish. I worked a bit on Croatian, but didn't spend enough time in Croatia (or Serbia, Montenegro, or Bosnia) to progress very far. I wanted German, but every German and Austrian I met spoke perfect English. 

I made decent progress in Greek, however. I got to where I could book a room, discuss the dulcimer, and sell a cd. As I got further along I tweaked my goal upward to pursue five languages, especially since I'd gotten strong enough in Italian that I could separate it from Spanish with some effort. 

Then the Greek economy collapsed, and I saw that it might be awhile before I go back to pick it up again. So I'm back on Croatian, since I'm planning to spend at least a few weeks there this spring. 

And my sporadic progress staggers on.

I'm not a very ambitious person, and it's taken me a long time to realize this. I am a goal-oriented person, and as long as I've had big goals I've seemed, to myself, ambitious. But now that I've achieved most of those I'm no longer interested in striving and climbing. 

That's not to say I'm completely at loose ends; I still want conversational fluency in five languages (which has been a goal, although the original number was three, since I was 14). And I'm making very slow and sporadic but measurable progress in that direction. 

As for major life goals I feel I'm pretty solid. I'm coming up on ten years as a full-time musician, which is a bit of a milestone. I'm traveling and seeing the world, and doing something I enjoy. 

I could say that I'd like to make more money, enough not to worry. I have friends in the 1%, however, and they worry about money just as much as I do. Not to mention that every time I try and maximize earnings I end up sacrificing something I like better. 

So the project isn't to fix things but to accept them. Artificial goals will do nothing but add stress and disappointment, and admitting who I am is the first step towards embracing it. 

And, as new goals present themselves, I'll be sure to chase them down. 

I have more of a routine than most expect. Here in Washington, most weekdays, I catch a 7:20 bus to the ferry (or an 8:05 if I'm sleepy), walk to Pike Place Market and put my marker in line, perform two hour-long shows between 11 and 3, and get home around 4. 

In Europe I perform Thursday-Sunday roughly 10-noon and again 5-7pm, choosing either a morning or evening set on Tuesday and Wednesday. At renaissance festivals I push hard all weekend and never get out of bed on Monday, doing back-end support Tuesday-Thursday. 

Where I am determines what I'm doing, but it's not as unstructured a life as it might seem. 

One of the greatest charms of Facebook is in reconnecting with old friends. It causes problems, however, when we violate conversational codes via status updates. 

I have conservative friends, and I know that they're conservative. I enjoy their company and they seem to like mine, and in person we stick to topics we agree on. We acknowledge each others' differences and move on, skirting any divisive subjects. 

On Facebook, however, all that goes away. I get to see every rant, snarky status, and political cause they might "like". And, if I'm not careful, they can see mine. 

I'm not sure how many friendships can survive this level of sharing, and know of several that haven't. I probably take it too far in editing my online self (it's a professional tool for me and I treat it as such), but it's a hard line to find.