I lack the life-force to get into it, but the Ikea desk is complete. It took me 3 hours. Now I'm physically destroyed—like I walked around a trade show all day in dress shoes. My back is a wreck. But I'll focus on the upside: now my son can be miserable doing Zooms at his desk.

After a night of restorative sleep, I can share more. In a quest for meaning, I decided to build the Ikea Alex desk as a challenge: Could I complete it while watching The Revenant and finish it before Leo had exacted his revenge. I made it. Barely. With caveats.

I've built maybe 25 pieces of major Ikea furniture in my life, but the projects have been spread over the years in a manner where I forget the existential pain and learnings long before I start the next one. I think this is part of Ikea's business plan: The power of forgetting.

The Alex desk had 42 steps. The images for each step—Ikea knows that words would add pennies to the cost of each desk so says nyet—give you 92.7% of the data you need to do that specific task. This means you likely will get it right but make four major mistakes before you're done

I know ikea is global but having words on the directions would make it less of a puzzle. I built an e-bike 2 days ago and the directions said "The pedals are marked left and right. This corresponds to the perspective of sitting on the bike." See, with words you can't fuck it up.