Loyal Scaiaholics will recall how I’ve said Texas feels like home. Oregon was lovely, but it just didn’t feel enough like Ohio.

UT-Austin, the University of Helsinki and Cambridge got together and said, “Hey, let’s research why he feels more comfortable in Texas.”

The picture above is from their personality study. Texas matches my home state of Ohio for being temperamental and uninhibited. The Northeast is the most temperatmental, and I do have quite a bit of family in New York and New England. The study says we’re “defined by low Extraversion, very low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, very high Neuroticism, and moderately high Openness.”

I believe I have most of those traits listed on my resume under “Accomplishments.”

Now listen, gang, you’ll also recall how my boss in Oregon was adamant that Ohio was a Northeastern state. This map may appear to back up his claim, but further study shows otherwise:

In this graph, Ohio ranks more closely with the Midwest by being both friendly and conventional. Texas is sticking with the Northeast and, gasp, the West Coast with a lack of friendliness.

I agree that I’m friendly. Never mind that my first boss and I are still having the same argument about which region Ohio is in 15 years later. The important thing is we keep in touch.

“But wait, Scaia, you neurotic and ruggedly handsome devil,” you’re saying to your computer screen. “Ohio is only moderately friendly!”

Maybe Ohioans don’t walk up to strangers and hand over a thermos full of hot chocolate on a cold day like they do, I assume, in Minnesota, but we do have our own chili: Cincinnati-style chili. And Tulsa, in a moderately non-creative [more on that in a moment] state, is trying to pass it off as its own.

Texas responded, though, by being temperamental and running Coney Island Hot Weiners out of town.

Texas and Ohio are similar in our lack of creativity. Here, we buck the trend of the Northeast. Apparently, Cambridge thinks it’s too good to consider chili in its methodology, though. So, I believe the scores should be recalculated. California can rank as high for creativity as it wants, but have firefighters in California ever been finalists in a chili cook-off?!

It’s possible my inclination to use both question marks and exclamation points at the end of sentences and my proclivity for putting words in italics show I may not be relaxed, but I am creative.

In fact, I put these maps out of order. Anything goes on the #ScaiaBlog!