(diaryland) January 16, 2009 - 9:32 a.m.

My boss seems to have a life remarkably similar to characters in my November Novels.

On Sunday night, he's going to Greece to hang out in his little town with his brother, which is in the mountains and is very nearly a ghost town. It's full of empty, picturesque houses.

He's also going to this remote mountain to hang out with very secretive monks. He got me to go on the internet to look up how to get there. It's really hard to get permission to go onto the mountain, and you have to be a guy. No women, for sure. They're banned.

The lady who runs the cafe downstairs has a nephew who is a monk. He used to live here in Melbourne, and suddenly one day, he went, "Fuck this shit. I'm going to be a monk." So off he went, to the mountain. He can only speak to his family on the phone every three months, and if he wants to see his mum, he has to go with a senior monk to a town far away so they can meet up.

His parents want him to stop being a monk, and my boss is sort of going to go up the mountain to rescue him. He is going to try and get to the monastery and tell them, "I'm X's uncle," and hopefully, this guy will say, "Uh.... yeah.... that's my uncle.... yeah." And then, my boss will somehow convince him to come home (even though he has absolutely no idea who my boss is) and the rescue mission will be complete.

Wowee. Sounds cool. I hope my boss can get onto the mountain, let alone pull this whole pretending to be an uncle rescuing plan off. Apparently, only a very tiny number of atheists are allowed to get onto the mountain. They check these things about you.