I don’t usually summarize the results of my surveys of sublime silliness. They’re just fun – we all get out on the ZS dance floor and shake our groove things. No analysis necessary.

But since Mondays are when I talk about the love project, and since our last survey was about love, and since I’m developing some very scientific theories about how love works – the nuts and bolts, heart-soul-pheromone-y-magic of it all… it seems appropriate that I should go through your responses with a fine tooth comb (or a glass of wine, as the case may be) and present you my findings (exactly) like the scientist I am.

Here we go…

1. Asked when you’d last engaged in a 6-second hug, most of you answered that you’d hugged someone hard within the day. (Levi won my heart with this response: Six seconds? What’s the rush?)
2. Our Zebra Sounds make-out mix tape, would include:
   Use Me – Bill Withers
   Take It Off – The Donnas
   I Do – Westlife
   Lady In Red – Chris de Burgh
   Love – Sugarland
   Dance With You – Live
   Closer – NIN
   Wicked Game – Chris Isaak
   Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
   All Out Of Love – Air Supply
   At Last – Etta
   Flowers of Romance – Ottmar Liebert
   I Want To Know What Love Is – Foreigner
   We Are In Love – Harry Connick, Jr
   All Blues – Miles Davis
   Let’s Get It On, Marvin Gaye (had to throw one in myself)
3. Here’s what I’m sure of: If we were to talk over shared cheesecake, it would be yummy in every way.
4. Holy cow, you guys have heard some hilariously weird pickup lines. My favorite response was from Kevin.
   Boy: How do you like your eggs in the morning?
   Girl: Unfertilized.
5. The overwhelming majority of you think a love note is the best thing for a secret admirer to give to the target of her affection. (As soon as I finish this post, I’ll be penning my notes to all of you.)
6. While Gomez Adams, William Shatner and Elvis Costello are all really good guesses, Michael’s answer summed up the consensus on who wrote the book of love: It’s an anthology. We’re still working on it.
   
7. Our feast of love would include chicken Marsala with red wine… cheese and chocolate fondue… pork chops… pampered-poetry-reading-grass-fed beef… pancakes… mashed potatoes… macaroni and cheese… chicken and dumplings… orange duckling… lasagna… salad… pizza… butter toast and hot chocolate… liver and onions (begrudgingly)… spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce… something with cream and lemon… come hither looks… champagne… cheesecake, strawberries and whip cream. (Clearly, it’s about love, not nutrition.)
8. Around here, we believe that love is colorful, colorless and color blind. Love is technicolor, the flush of a lover’s skin, the color of stars, a blush. Love is love, and pure soul, and yes, and red-purple-green-blue. Sky blue. Ocean blue. The color of my girl’s eyes.
9. When asked for a love quote, you looked to Bob Dylan, Blue October, John Lennon, Harris K. Telemacher, Kahlil Gibran, A.A. Milne, Kenneth Rexroth, Melvin Udall, Bloodhound Gang, Marty McFly, Judith Pordon, Joanne’s dad, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Pablo Neruda. (That is quite a list. You guys rock.)
10. Your questions to me about love were funny, pithy, earnest, frustrated, sweet, searching, raw. I loved them. And I loved the people who didn’t ask me anything. Especially the ones who had a #10 but left it blank. I was intrigued by the space, the big, unknowable questions contained there… I imagined those were the questions that Rainer Maria Rilke tells us to “live now”… so that perhaps we will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day… into the answers.