AAAAAUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

My Kindle just broke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Currently it’s still readable-on; there’s an area on the upper right about half an inch wide and 3 inches long where the screen is displaying …. well, sort of boxes with smudges in them. Not test, anyway. This happened because I was charging my backup battery for our trip – when I put the better battery back in and turned it back on, this had happened.

I called Amazon, but since my Kindle is over a year old the warranty has run out. So my options are:
– buy a refurbed Kindle 1, $99. And they are back-ordered so it won’t be shipped for at least three weeks.
– buy a new Kindle 2, $259, could be shipped today.
– buy an iPad when those go on sale, $459, shipping in late March.
– don’t buy anything and hope none of my books have important information in the upper half of the rightmost 1/2″.

This is the worst time for this to happen, as I head out for almost two weeks tomorrow and am then only back for a week before leaving again. I’d probably go with the Kindle 2 option tonight …. but then there’s the Macmillan thing. How can I drop that much money on the Kindle when I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get the books I want?

So I guess my best choice for the moment is option 4, coupled with hoping that the problem doesn’t expand and if it does, the lodge where we’re staying has a good library. And while I’m gone, I will debate between the K2 and iPad options. I guess. And see what the news is when we return.

Fuck.

(I’m actually feeling a foolish tendency to descend into full-blown panic over this – How will I survive without a functional Kindle if it goes bad? I am reminding myself hard that anxiety is a side effect of the malaria drug I’m on, and that the Kindle 2 option does at least exist.)

Any and all advice is welcome. I don’t promise to take it but would be reassured by hearing others’ views, even if they’re “You’re being an idiot. Go order a bunch of dead-tree books from Powell’s. Or reread the ones you have.”