Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 9: Tanglewood North Apartments

(Image, as usual, from Google Maps.)

My memory is going to be somewhat unreliable here.  I lived in the Dolphin Apartments from 1989 to sometime in 1990.  I was seeing a girl, with whom I was madly in love, & she strangely, suddenly, moved into an apartment complex right next to the Dolphin Apartments.  I don't think I had anything to do with that situation.  But maybe I did.  Since she was living close to me, & since we were arguably a couple, I was spending a great deal of time with her, I was there more often than in my tiny studio/efficiency.  Her apartment was one bedroom.  Also, she was mostly in control.

Here's the thing: her parents did not want her to date me.  This situation had something to do with her cultural background which, though interesting, I don't want to go into here.  So I technically couldn't move in with her.  Her parents didn't know she was dating me.  When they visited, I could not be "at home."  My things were not welcome in this house.  It is for this reason I don't believe we lived at Tanglewood North together for very long.  I suspect we might have lived there through 1990.  But we found another place - & another complication - soon enough.

What I remember most about the place is that our bed was in the living room because my "girlfriend" - honestly, she never really committed to me - used the "bedroom" as an art studio.  She was an art student.  The place had the heat & air conditioning controlled by the management so, in the nebulous Austin "fall" & "winter," when temperatures outside dropped or rose according to insane algorithms, we had to complain when the heat was on when it was warm outside, & the cold air blowing when outside it was nearly freezing.

One fond memory I have of the time is when one of my girlfriend's teachers, the performance artist Carolee Schneemann - look her up - came over for dinner.  She was perhaps one of the first "celebrities" I would meet, & she was lovely & gracious & a bit frightening.  I had recently purchased a CD player - this was early 1989 - & one of the first CDs I bought was either Leonard Cohen's first or second record ("Songs Of Leonard Cohen" or "Songs From A Room").  Carolee looked at the CD & she said, "I've made love to nearly every song on this record!"

Yes, I wish I could claim to have had some deep interaction with her but mostly she terrified me.  She was so forthright about everything in her life & I suspect I had never been too terribly honest with anyone.  My ex-girlfriend got to see her later in life but I never did.  That's a sadness for me - although of course she would never have remembered me!

Years later I nearly dated a girl who lived at Tanglewood North & would feel a chill when I walked through the complex.  It seemed to me a happy time, but I was being delusional.  The woman I was with did not really want to be with me & almost certainly felt trapped.  I spent the time living there going to school & working at both UT & at 7-11 at nights to pay off debts, so I wasn't there for most of 1990.  I think I took the 1990 spring semester off from college.  Which prevented me from graduating with my class.  But I didn't give much of a shit about that.

& maybe I'm a little surprised they're still called Tanglewood North.  Is there a Tanglewood South?  I don't have the energy to look.  Then or now.