ally's journal

forget ancient ruins in turkey or an incredible sunset in the alps. a cheese and ham toastie (with a well-dressed side salad) can be a thing of real beauty:) this is from the doublet bar in glasgow.

everything i've learned i have forgotten

some days are better than others. an obvious statement of course. the last few days i've struggled. i always think when i blog it should be an accurate reflection of me and what i feel. i hit a low point on saturday and it continued through sunday and yesterday. i'm okay now. i think sometimes i just get the black cloud that obstructs all that i can see and i become sad and i can't shake it off. i can't help it, it's always how's it been. my imagination is often my downfall. i can use it positively to make songs but it can go to the dark side and i obsesss about events that i cannot control and that are irrational to logical minds. in one of my favourite films, sideways, miles is warned by jack not to go to "the darkside" and i can relate. it's hard sometimes. when i was a boy i used to imagine all sorts of terrible things that might happen, purely coz my imagination was too active. i learned over the years to stop myself falling and to control and use this imagination for the good so i wrote little stories and comedy. later the outlet was songwriting. all of that was my therapy. but sometimes i still slip up and i don't want to emerge from the duvet. i'm only human. so, i suppose i wanted to blog about it because lately i've only blogged when i've been happy. wow, i was in a fantastic mood when i last blogged! what happened?:P

i think at this time of year i become slightly fearful. maybe it's because we're slipping into another winter when the sky becomes greyer and the days shorter. my friend suggested a bulb that artists use to create an artificial daylight when they paint, so i'm going to invest in one of those. it'll hopefully become the sun in my flat.

on a postive note i recorded a second version of a demo that might end up being a fully-realised track on the third album. i mentioned it last time, it's called "man's man". i was thinking seriously that i could still stick it on the second, as-yet-to-be-released-long-overdue album, coz i really love it. but i think i need to lay that album to bed and say goodnight to those songs. this track (man's man) is going to be a part of my new project, and i'll keep writing and amassing songs for the next record, whenever that'll see the light of day. it's almost definite that the second album - off the radar - will be released at the end of january/early feb. thank goodness (for my sanity) for that.