Generally speaking, I'm not an envious man. It doesn't bother me that some people are richer than I, or have better looks and taste, or can jump out of bed in the morning without grumbling the way I do at a body that takes me 10 minutes to persuade that I want it to work the way I want it to, dammit.

But I draw the line at Paul (not his real name), my type-2 neighbor who, at age 70, has achieved some remarkable numbers without having gone through the rigmarole I've had to in order to arrive at a decent-enough A1c (7%).