Vanilla Infused Stevia (and some rambling)

This is a damn simple recipe. It's so simple, I don't think it counts as one.

Take a vanilla pod. Put it into a pint sized mason jar. Cover with finely ground stevia (like the sort used to replace sugar in baking). Let it sit in a dark cupboard for a few months. In the end, you have stevia that is flavored with vanilla. It's a subtle flavor that goes well with oolong tea. Just top it off with more stevia as you use it up. Keep in that cupboard when you're not using it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I feel like it isn't safe for me to express myself fully. It's why I have been wearing bandannas more of late instead of my pretty scarves. The increasingly 'conservative' attitudes of the community we live in distresses me. The march towards oligarchy or fascism, I honestly can't tell the difference anymore right now, terrifies me. The people who go on screeds about how the mentally ill are dangerous and exhort that we should be locked away (at best) frighten me. The way that people act how autism is a fate worse than death and that there should be a purge of all autistic people (yes, I have seen people saying these things) is deeply distressing.

I want to say that these things are outliers. But they are what I hear coming out of the mouths of people in my neighborhood when I am out and about. When I am dressed in a more conventional fashion, they assume that I am just like them and will go on and on about their things, expecting me to nod and agree. Racism is becoming more open and if you're suspected to be a 'sympathizer' you get an earful.

One day, while I was out, I heard people commenting on 'rag heads' as they were walking right behind me. I was wearing one of my scarves. It has me feeling like I can't wear my scarves out in public anymore. I know some of it is my social phobia, but you know, social phobia is pretty hard to discourage when people around you are actively stating things like how all the 'rag heads' in the country should get killed. They shut right up when I turned around and looked at them. Apparently they didn't feel comfortable making those comments about a person as lily white as myself.