Chapter 29: A-D-S-S

ADSS Presents Genesis

I didn’t even know I was bored at first. I was kind of just hanging out with myself. Sometimes a bit high. I would be finished with work for the day, and I would just be around in my apartment in Philly. It was eerily similar to when I struggled ot the pandemic, but I was different.

My walls similar to my social plans around that time-- not much going on. I had stacked my books against the wall on the floor. The TV I had, a booming 32-inch flat screen that was outdated for 2023 standards, sat in a moving box. My mom visited me at some point soon after I moved and pretty much begged to get me a bookshelf. I declined. I felt at home.

To most, this is what they call “The Devil’s Playground”. Too much idle time. I was swimming in it. It’s only because of all the lonely nights that had come before, was I prepared for these. But, little did I know, that preparation helped me find my purpose.

As I would be sitting there, usually on my computer, I would start creating. I really wasn’t paying much attention to what I was doing. AI tools were new in the summer of 2023, and it was being discussed that you could use them to generate images. My interest in technology sparked a fuse of curiosity to test them out. I would type in random things at first. “Haunted cabin”. “Pixelated image of a samurai”. Whatever.

Then I started to wonder how the tools would interpret abstract concepts. The idea of a computer interpreting words and their meaning to create images I found fascinating. “Pain, joy, oil painting”. I would enter prompts like this, over and over. Each time, a little more curious of what would come next. Then I decided to mix and match wild things. Dinosaurs and cotton fields. Or butterflies and spaceships. I started to entertain myself with these silly combinations and their outcomes.

It was also around this time, simply out of the blue, the phrase “all different shapes and sizes” popped into my head. I wrote it down in journal I had. I remember staring at it for a few seconds. I felt like it was looking back at me. I wasn’t sure what to do with it at first. I just liked how it sounded. It felt like a puzzle to say it aloud. I liked how all the words sounded when said in sequence. I noticed that if you shortened it to initials, it became “A-D-S-S” (ADSS from here on out), which I liked the sound of. And, as a bonus, my initials are AD. I left my notebook open and continued on with my day.

A week or so later, back to being bored and generating images, I thought that it would be cool to create logos for ADSS, just to see what it would look like. I first thought of spelling it with alphabet cereal letters. The “A” and “D” a little crooked. From the outset I connected ADSS with something a little wacky. A little out there. A little me.

I tried making ADSS logos using AI, but I thought, I can just add it in to the AI images I was making using a different software. I began to stylize ADSS in different colors and fonts and put them onto these odd AI generated images where I mixed two disparate things. I slowly started to design my own unique ADSS logos using the basics of what I knew about Adobe Illustrator. The learning I had done years ago becoming useful. Simple shapes, a few colors. As I developed this practice more, I found myself creating subtle design guidelines the logos. Certain things I wanted to be signature each one so they felt cohesive. .

Then, I began to write poetry again. I hadn’t really seriously since the pandemic. One night, around this time of designing these ADSS logos, I wrote this:

Declaration (2023):

You just have to take the risk. To break the silence.

I take the risk,

Of being heard,

Loud & proud.

I take the risk,

Of honoring my journey,

Stumblings profound.

I take the risk,

Of forgiveness,

Betrayal knocks at my door

I take the risk

Of writing freely,


Silence me no more.

It wasn’t titled. Just written in my notebook. I took a picture of it and texted it to a few people. I had shared some of my pandemic poetry, but that felt more out of wanting to be seen. More of a desperate attempt at connection. I remember the feeling I had when I posted the poem about my father online, and how I regretted it. This felt purposeful. This felt like, I had something to say, and I want to share it. I felt proud of what I had written. Of what I had created. A new feeling that I felt like I was just beginning to scratch the surface of.

It was this same night, I took this poem, and combined it with one of my ADSS logos on Adobe Illustrator and created the first ADSS poem.

ADSS was born.