Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy, lousy, no-good, cut-rate birthday, dear Barry. Happy birthday to me. Here I am, the big five-oh, and I feel like I'm 70. I looked at myself in the mirror today and I realized, for the first time, how damn tired and old I look. When I got into office I had smooth skin, dark hair and a hale disposition. Today I look like somebody's grandpa. Except people usually listen to their grandpas when they try to give them advice. Nobody's listening to me these days. I tried with Congress. I really did, but they just wouldn't listen. Stupid Tea Party people muddying up the discourse and stupid Harry Reid droning on about his frickin' garden like the charisma-deficient toad he is. Where's the energy, man? Where's a good Howard Dean scream when I need it? Oh, this debt business puts a pain in my kidneys. That's what I get for my birthday. Organ pain. Organ pain and some so-so rice pudding.

I never ask for big parties. Heck, back during the election somebody wanted to throw me a big soiree, one of the early campaign supporters who had already reached his contribution limit. He said there was gonna be oysters on the half shell, magnums of champagne and live performers (Chinese acrobats, if I recall correctly), but I told him to save his money and donate it to some charity instead. The party sounded great, but I had to be humble. The opposition was tossing around the word "elitist" a lot, so being caught on camera sucking oysters in a tuxedo while Ming-Pao climbs a bamboo pole upside-down for my amusement would have been a bit much.

This year? Well, this year it's a gummy rice pudding from some store in Alexandria, Virginia and some non-alcoholic sparkling cider. Yeah, my birthday party was on the debt reduction plan. Sure, a couple thousand dollars is just a drop in the bucket when you're talking trillions in debt, but every little bit counts. I'm not the only one making sacrifices, I know, but it just doesn't feel right. I'm the President. My birthday party shouldn't be identical to that of some middle-aged accountant in Boise.

I keep telling myself that the second term is going to be better. In moments of weakness, when my kidneys really start kicking, I think about what it would be like to lose the election and get out of politics altogether, but I can't do that. Not when the Republican playing field is how it is. This country can't afford a Huntsman or a Bachmann or maybe even a Romney. It's doom. Pure doom. I've got to keep serving for another four years... five, it's five years. Five. Damn. Years. Five that feel like twenty for the sake of my country.

This rice pudding is terrible.