Since September 11, roadblocks, closed streets, choppers, and Secret Service agents have become part of the city’s downtown landscape. And the state of siege continued with the election, and now the inauguration. “I was detained by Capitol Hill police in August for taking pictures of roadblocks,” Sinzinger says.

Washington may not yet realize it but, like Spiderman, it has a secret identity: it has become America’s most Canadian city. It went heavily into mourning the day after Senator John Kerry lost. In and out of Tekle’s cab, I watched people stumble around, confer with one another, fill up the bars at lunchtime, demand of their cellphones, “Who voted for him, anyway?” Hiccup, vomit, cry. I didn’t think this happened, except in Canada, not this unanimously, not even in New York. For a Canadian, Washington outside the political beltway has strangely become the most comforting place in the U.S. Perhaps we should approach it for a friendly annexation, and save time on processing all those individual applications for permanent residency.