Watching the sixth season of the West Wing on DVD last week, I was struck by a scene in which White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman heads over to the office of Republican Senator Arnold Vinick, to find the Senator enrapt in shining his shoes.

“Mr. Chairman.”
“Shine your own shoes, Josh?”
“No. I can’t say that I do.”
“My father used to say, you can’t trust a man who doesn’t shine his own shoes.” Looks down at Josh’s feet “Does anyone shine those things?”
“Not really. No.”

At this bit of dialogue, I flashed on my own shoe rack – brown boots and black oxfords slowly descending towards the same scuffed blur of grey. And I thought, perhaps it’s time to start shining.

So, earlier this afternoon, I picked up a brush and a stack of polishes at the local Duane Reade. And, in between chipping away at the huge stack of emails in my inbox (Oh in Ohio, T-minus five days), I set about shining my shoes.

Thus far, I’m hugely pleased, both by the finished shoes – which look surprisingly good considering my rookie shiner status – and by how I feel. Perhaps it’s just the inhaled polish fumes talking, but, in a line of work that seems always a nebulous, swirling mess, there’s something remarkably gratifying about getting something finite, real, noticeable and concrete accomplished, just within the space of a single afternoon.