It’s been five months since Harlan Ellison’s stroke. He indulged a visitor to his website today with a good news update:

I’m in no actual physical pain, save for stiffness and slower recovery of full motor control on the right side than I’d foolishly anticipated. A stroke has more potent slowdowns than one at first (or for the first few weeks) chooses to countenance.

I eschewed the cane — seemed somehow too much the “crip” for my taste, though why that odd choice is any less the portrait of incapacity than either the walker or the little wheelchair I use — nonetheless I stave on. With gorgeouus fountain pen in hand, I have stood aloft that walker for many hours answering (exact count as of today) 1118 “get well” cards — a giant pain in the ass of Courtesy — an act of Chivalry that dispells all the rumors of my Bad Manners.

Ironically, Harlan’s fountain pen was getting a big workout last year around this time, too…