I have a beautiful CSS Layout…Now what?

Dear WordPress Users of all kinds,

It has been my greatest wish and desire to complete a WordPress custom design for my website/blog for the longest time now, and I finally reached the point, albeit taking baby steps, where I am ready to integrate this system into my template.

Now, honestly, I have nothing but the slightest idea of where to begin. I know that there is a hierarchy that wordpress follows and it requires certain files to be present in order for it to function properly. My template is a single HTML file with CSS for styling. Do I split my layout up into different sections? Do I have to use specific template tags in order to get things to work? I am aware of the loop where and such, where all the posting action happens, and a few other tags that call things like archives, category lists, etc., but that’s about it.

From this point, what do I go about doing to go the next step? There are probably instructions somewhere in the Codex that would tell me exactly what to do but I’m not exactly in a right state of mind.

If anyone is willing to aid me just for a short period and give me a basic run-through of what I need to know on AIM, or MSN, etc., it would be tremendously appreciated. I will provide my information immediately. Thank you very much.