Right now, I believe I am being very clueless. How do I earn a picture above my username in the sidebar?
You don't have to earn one. Go onto your username and get the dropdown up/down/visible/whatever. It will have Avatar on it. Click that.
Thank you very much, I've found it. As a reward for your help, I'll admit I have a second clueless question. Are there any good sites where I can get a picture for an avatar?
If you need royalty-free free images, Pixabay is a good one. They are free and available at low-res, so just search and see if there's one there you like. Buy the artist a coffee if you have spare change or feel guilty! I got mine from my Avatar from an online game, now closed, which is a shame because they had a great avatar generator.
A warning about Google: they do not have the rights to many of the images found on a search, and as such if we find an avatar with a watermark, or are asked to take one down due to rights violations, we will delete it. To clarify, the standard image rules apply to avatars. We will delete objectionable avatars and may ban or suspend the author as well, just as we would if it was posted in a thread.
The avatars are easy - it's the getting a title that requires a certain amount of begging with the admins.
That is one sweet avatar there @atry. Reminds me of something I can't quite place. What's the influence?