Spin Cycle: Notes from a Reluctant Caregiver
High school math teacher Ezra Pavic is having a hard time. His wife left him, his son barely tolerates him, and now he’s being blindsided by something he never saw coming: the emotional spin cycle of parenting a parent. His mother Irene has dementia, and it’s exhausting. Caring for her is a constant source of frustration, resentment, and guilt. Lots of guilt.
Overwhelmed by it all, Ezra opens a strip-mall school to help others—and himself—become better caregivers. As he learns to handle the personalities of his nine misfit students, Ezra must also navigate the complex feelings he has toward his mother. It doesn’t help that she adores his do-nothing slacker brother.
But Ezra hasn’t told his students that he also has an agenda beyond becoming a more compassionate caregiver. And, it turns out, so does one of his students. Ezra confides the entire tale to his childhood friend Danny as he attempts to sort it all out and find room in his heart again for compassion and love.
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Alfredo Botello is a screenwriter who has worked on projects ranging from the indie Sundance Global short La Revolución De Iguodala to the studio tentpole Fast and Furious 9. He is a Fulbright Fellow in architecture and a Nicholl Fellow in screenwriting. In addition to screenplays, he has written for The San Francisco Examiner Magazine, Metropolis, Diablo, Surface, The Utne Reader, Style, The East Bay Express, and The Monthly. Botello also co-owns two dive bars in downtown Oakland, Radio Bar and the Ruby Room, and at home dotes on his two corgis, George and Dotty.