To Instagram or not to Instagram? That is the question.

Let me just start by saying that this is not a new version of Hamlet for 2016. Nor is it some new age social media soliloquy—it’s an actual question.

In response to another actual question—you’ll just need to give me a pass on the whole “answering a question with a question” thing.

A couple weeks ago, somebody asked me, “How come you’re not on Instagram?”

There are several answers to this question. First, I hate pictures of myself—there’s a dog on the Who? page of my website for cryin’ out loud. Or did you not even notice? Did you actually think YA Author Tom Hoover was a 16-year-old Lhasa Apso?

He isn’t. I mean, I’m not.

Just don’t tell anyone. My dogs appreciate the biscuits, and if you interfere with that, they’ll be lookin’ for you.

Second reason for not being on Instagram? Here’s what most days look like: Get up. Walk down the hall to my office. Feed the dogs. How many pictures of my faux cedar floor or a bowl full of kibble does the Internet want?

I’m guessing less than one.

Reason number three: I’m convinced I’ll screw it up somehow. It’ll be the time my naked, embarrassed Skype business meeting with the conservative publisher of my dreams nightmare comes true.

But it gets worse.

What if Jena Malone, my ultimate celebrity crush, is a sumo wrestler with a handlebar mustache? And the girl I’ve been crushing on all this time is really her stunt double. And she hates the attention I give Jena? It makes her jealous and she comes to kill me?

So there I am, strapped to a table in an evil lair like Batman from the ’60s, and she’s got this Goldfinger killer laser that she’s gonna cut me in half with. And suddenly I realize that if I hadn’t put myself out there on Instagram, I’d be alive today.

Writing this blog.

So you see the problem, yes?

Instagram.

Am I right, Jena, or am I right?

But I digress. Like the pictures? I had dinner at my favorite nontraditional Mexican restaurant while I wrote this. I was doing my David Mamet impersonation. He writes in restaurants, too. He’s also a successful author and playwright, meaning he’s not eating langostino empanadas and writing a blog.

But I’m not jealous.

Better yet, he promised not to tell Jena’s stunt double about me.

I wonder if she has a mustache … .