[jQuery] fadein/fadeout conflicting

[jQuery] fadein/fadeout conflicting


I'm brand new to jQuery. And, I'm wanting to make something fadeOut
when I hover or mouseover and fadeIn when I mouseout. I tried the two
methods below. But, when I leave the mouse cursor positioned over the
element, I get an unwanted blink effect. It seems that when the
fadeOut() ends, it triggers the next method. I wouldn't expect that.
I figure this is probably jQuery 101. But, I couldn't find the answer
in the archives.
Any suggestions?
TIA,
backdoc
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
    $("a").click(function(e) {
        e.preventDefault;
        //alert("Hello world!");
    });
    $("a").hover(
        function(e) {
            $(this).css("background", "white");
            $(this).fadeOut(500);
        },
        function(e) {
            $(this).css("background", "black");
            $(this).fadeIn(100);
        });
/*
    $("a").mouseover(
        function(e) {
            //alert(this.id);
            $(this).css("background", "yellow");
            $(this).fadeOut(500);
        });
    $("a").mouseout(
        function(e) {
            $(this).css("background", "black");
            $(this).fadeIn(100);
        });
*/
});
</script>