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So you may have noticed that yesterday's post ended with an asterisk. (Or maybe you didn't.)

It was right after the sentence fragment, "Whether you are one or not."

There are decisions I am putting off making. I realized after I created this blog and filled in the bit "About Me," that I had not said anything that identified my gender. This made me curious. Obviously, most of you reading know who I am, so it's a moot point. But how would it affect my writing to maintain gender anonymity, whether it's real or theoretical?

It made me notice, once again, that I consider myself a person who has many attributes that are considered more characteristic of the other gender than my own. And I'm fine with that. In fact, I consider it further proof that gender stereotypes are fairly silly.

But I also wonder if the fact that I didn't identify my gender means that it is not an important part of my sense of myself. I think it might mean that. I mean, I'm all for same gender-bonding, but then again, I'm fine working with people of the other gender(s) as well. I guess I would say I'm in the middle on that scale.

It's very complicated stuff.

And I was kind of looking forward to maintaining my gender anonymity, and then I realized I was writing a post about Tina Fey that might give me away. So I added that last line in there to make it mysterious again.

Who knows who I am, opining about the increased stature of women with glassses? Okay, I'll admit that I wear glasses. Tortoise shell glasses, even. But men and women both do that. My spouse and I have both had tortoise shell glasses at one point or another.

But does almost giving myself away mean that my gender is a more central part of my identity than I realized at first? Perhaps it does. Very complicated stuff. What would I give up by revealing my gender? Anything? I'm not sure I posted enough before this little Tina slip-up to really get a sense of what it's like to be gender-anonymous. But I think it would be an interesting exercise for most of us to experience it once in a while.

The other side of that is to stop for a moment, when you're reading an article but forgot to look at the by-line and determine whether you've been assuming the author is male or female. Gender assumptions can be very powerful. And creepy.