<i>Okay my stupidity knows no limits -- I was in some directory outside of root.</i>

You mean you were logged in as a user other than root?

<i>When I type "emerge --usepkg vanilla-sources" I get an illegal instruction error. I've tried using gentoo-sources and just emerge itself. *sigh*</i>

What is "illegal instruction error"?

Did you read this?

<i>Choose your kernel source and install it using emerge. From now onwards we will use emerge --usepkg which will install a prebuilt package if available (for GRP users) and download it otherwise. In other words, if you are not using prebuilt packages, you can omit the --usepkg option, but you don't have to. Furthermore, you can abbreviate the --usepkg option by using -k.</i>

Are you using GRP? If not, you don't want the --usepkg option. Just <b>emerge whatever-sources</b>. You already did <b>emerge sync</b> and <b>emerge system</b> and whatnot, right? If those worked, there's no reason <b>emerge whatever-sources</b> shouldn't work too. Substituting something for "whatever" of course. (Get gentoo-sources, they're nice. They have patches to increase performance for desktop users. )

At least you're almost done with the install. If you can survive compiling the kernel, you'll be set.