"Yes, Nora, it's turning out great."
"I'm just worried it's going to sound awkward."
"No, trust me. It's turning out exactly the way I pictured it. You just keep working hard."
"Okay, but I don't think we will be able to fit the next plot into this book. We are going to have to write a second book if you want to include all of it."
"Yes, and we'll get to that after we finish this one off then if you still want to work on it that is."
"Umm..."
"Well, we can talk about it after, let's just think about where to leave this one off at.
"Okay."
"Alright, I'll talk to you later then."
James hangs up the phone.
He gets himself a drink from the fridge and then begins to make 3 more phone calls. One is to Ian, one to his manager, and the other to a company Ian wanted him to call about materials.
After James finished his last call, his drink had lost most of its temperature, but then he remembered something.
"Oh yeah, my birthday was yesterday."
James had turned 26.
It was starting to get dark out, the temperature outside was very cool, and it was a Friday. Days like these made his mind remember certain things, he didn't know why though.
He started to recall being 22 when he first transmigrated, and that was in 1977. It was now 1981.
James has been working for 4 years straight. Non-stop writing and directing, trying to get as much done as possible.
The hard work paid off, he had saved a ton of money If James didn't want to work another day of his life, he could just retire right now and not worry about anything. Even if he spent life luxuriously, he wouldn't necessarily run out of money.
Well, to be fair, he's heard of a few celebrities who managed to waste away fortunes. But, even then, James could invest in something like Bitcoin which was popular later on in his life. There was Bitcoin and something else, but James couldn't remember what it was. right now.
"Well, there is Apple and Microsoft, I guess, but that's still far away. Amazon, too..."
James wasn't focused on investments. He only knew about big corporations in his last life and he had never considered going back to 1977, so he had no idea about any of the companies in this era.
He decided to schedule a meeting with a hedge fund or something, maybe they'd jog his memory about certain companies.
James was mainly wondering if he should do something for his birthday, although it had already passed.
The construction of his compound had made him completely forget about it. It wasn't as if James did much in terms of celebrating in the past, but this was the first time he had not remembered. It had just slipped his mind, and that made him a little sad.
--------------------
James decided to look around his room. He was currently staying at a hotel, not too far from his new compound.
His old home, he was debating whether to sell or keep it as an investment.
When James was looking for property around LA, Ian didn't like any of the homes near the compound or found them too expensive, so he suggested building a home instead.
James just wanted something livable, and to have somewhere to store stuff.
Ian advised that it would look bad on the company and his image if he didn't have at least a nice home to live in.
In the future, this standard would be broken apart by people like Warren Buffet and Elon musk, but for now, it was understandable that people wouldn't look too fondly on James. People might start to think he was cheap or that he blew all his money.
People's perception wasn't something Ian cared too much about, but if it affected the way he dealt with business then it was better to just spend money on something.
After some searching, Ian found a few acres of land, that had recently been cleared out. Ian suggested building James' home here and a private storage facility for him.
Ian would design a home focused on practicality, then surround it with other structures that looked livable, but that would mainly be used for storage.
James thought it was a neat idea, but told him he didn't want to spend money on making a storage facility look fancy.
Just simple storage facilities, with sheet metal to act as the exterior and some insulation to go in the inside. Maybe Ian could run some wires for electricity, but other than that, James didn't want Ian to spend too much money on it.
Ian disagreed for a few reasons:
One, if he didn't add some sort of design to the storage, it would look like he was living in a trailer park, making James look bad, conversely making his architect look bad, who was Ian.
And two, this storage facility would be considered a tax write-off, so it was better if he spent more money on it.
James hadn't been spending his money, so taxes were becoming a problem for him. Although it wasn't as bad in 1981,l as it was in the future, it still didn't feel great losing out on any of his hard-earned money.
James decided to go with Ian's suggestion and spend more money on their construction. They decided on building the exterior with materials like stone, brick, and concrete.
James then had an idea of making the storage buildings look like a strip mall.
Ian hated this idea.
"No. No way. If we make it like a strip mall, it'll just be a giant blob taking up space in the middle of the lot. Look at this incredibly open area we have!" Ian would say as he motioned to the plot of land James bought.
"If we make a strip mall here, we will lose sight of any of the trees or grass that surrounds your home."
"Well, you could just separate the stores individually, and make it like that," James would say.
"Hah, and then you would just have a bunch of little boxes to ruin any sort of naturalness or likeability to this place. It would look unbelievably ugly... and ridiculous."
"I mean, I don't really care how it would look like, as long as it has the strip mall look."
"Jesus, man, what is it with you and strip malls? Why do you want it to look like a strip mall?"
"... I don't know, it's just the only thing I can think of. And they don't look bad, so it's fine."
"No, you're right. They don't look bad, they look horrible. My professor would cry if I showed him the box design you want me to do."
"Listen, strip malls are made of the same material, are practical, and look nice. They've probably run the numbers and it's cost-effective. But, if you can make anything better-"
"-Obviously, I can make something better."
"Right, well, I don't want any designs just for the sake of aesthetics. Nothing too fancy."
"Well, it makes it pretty impossible to make anything nice if I can't make any sort of designs at all. If you want a bunch of plain-faced boxes, I can do that, but if you want something you can look at and be proud of every time you're here, then I can do something even better."
"...Like what?"