When I was younger, my favorite part about babysitting was getting to eat other people’s food. Once I got the kids to bed, I would dive into the fridge and cabinets, looking for the weirdest, tastiest junk food I could find. The kind of stuff we never had around the house, ho-hos or moon pies or haagen daas. I felt like I was learning something about the people I was babysitting for -- what kind of people kept moon pies around ,anyway? Were they for an emergency? Or a daily part of their diet? Was I missing out on something, or was I better off in a strictly oreo and frozen yogurt house?A few weeks ago, I rented a little cabin in the desert, out past 29 palms. I was going mostly for the solitude – I wanted some time to write. Also, I’m about to leave California, and I had never really spent time in the desert. But the thing that cinched the deal was that the cabin had its own record player. With records.Rummaging around in someone else’s music collection is a bit more of an intimate act, generally, than eating someone’s junk food – you’re learning something about a person. Usually, it’s an acquisitive act, too. In college I wouldn’t just borrow CD’s – I would burn them, play them on the radio, throw them on playlists, make the music my own. But I couldn’t burn these records, and I didn’t know the person who’d bought them. I felt like, instead, I was getting to know the house. I was just spending time with the music in its natural habitat.The records I discovered/revisited that weekend:kd lang’s Shadowland, which is an odd record, in that it walks this fine line b/w jazz and “smooth jazz,” – it almost sucks – but instead, by a combination of solid arrangements and lang’s confident delivery, it’s an enjoyable, classic-sounded record, lovely for cooking to. I imagine you have to be a jazz standards geek to begin with to love it.Talking Heads Fear of Music, which is darker than I remember – whenever one of my friends tells me they listened to Talking Heads as little kids I wonder if it fucked them up—but full of glorious noise. I listened to this one a few times, partially as a more modern palate-cleanser between the older (or older-sounding) records.Willie Nelson’s Stardust, more covers, and I thought his cover of “Someone to Watch Over Me” was perfect. I love that song, but I loved hearing a man sing it, because it is in my mind kind of an ode to female helplessness, instead of just the helplessness of love, but Willie recontextualized.Joni Mitchell’s Hissing of Summer Lawns, which is probably her most interesting record. Even though the sound and vibe is pure 70’s, I associate it anachronistically with the fall of 2000, when I was a senior in high school, so it moves me—“Sweet Bird” makes my heart pound, still, as if i’m still awaiting all that change before me. It's weird to have that song provoke such intense nostalgia, but oh god, I loved it so much.The other record I remember listening to is Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust. Again, my favorites were the covers, especially her cover of “Simple Twist of Fate.” The Dylan impression in the middle, especially. It’s odd to hear right after a song about him, but the song was so lively, and she made it hers so thoroughly, even while riffing on his delivery. She made it joyful, and I loved hearing the song that way.In short, I have been converted to the value of the record player, its rituals, its pleasures. I can’t decide if I want to seek these records out in CD or MP3 form or not—they worked so well in their own space, held down, the opposite of music in your pocket. Music in a place. But ultimately I am weak, music is strong, and there is a willie nelson sized hole in my iTunes. And, um, in my HEART.