the website is telling me that the rating range needs to include my own rating. i was pretty sure i did, but i went and checked anyway. my rating is 932 and i am using 900-1000 for the range. am i doing something wrong? i just made the account. thanks.

You are creating an open seek? (http://www.chess.com/echess/create_game.html)

If you put a rating range you must make sure to leave the "Opponent" field blank. Also, make sure to put "900" as min and "1000" as max.

i guess my rating is higher than i thought. is the rating in the tactics section different than your overall rating? that was where i went to find out what it was. i hadnt played a game yet and there was a start game button that i guess just does everything for you, and when i clicked it and set up the game it said that my rating was 1200. but then the guy aborted right away, so i still dont have a game to play.

Yup, the ratings are different in mentor, tactics and games. You'll be provisional with your games rating for until you complete 10 games. Your rating takes a while to settle because of ther type of system here (which is good) because it uses this glicko count thing. I didn't know anything about it until I read it. Cheack out the help link at the top of pages and it'll give you all the juice you need. Good luck and enjoy.