eraser tool painting instead of erasing in Adobe Illustrator

[knot22]

starting pointafter use eraser tool

The first image on the left above shows my starting point.  I want to erase the 4 sharp points in the inside of the overlapping circles so they look smooth.  However, when I select the eraser tool and click+drag it over the points on the inside/left of the image, I get the result shown in the second picture above.  What am I doing wrong?  The circles are not grouped together but they are in the same layer.

[KShinabery212 · Accepted solution]

Ok, This is what I normally do...

So let's say I created a path like you  have. 

I usually to Object>Expand.  This turns my line into a closed object.  Then I can erase parts of the object.

Before doing this, if I am trying to erase it continues to try to close the line.  And that is the issue you are running into.

I even expand TEXT too if I want to erase or adjust parts of it.

Here is a example... for every line of this project I expaned the line to become an object.  As you will see it has quite a lot of lines. 

https://kennshinabery.myportfolio.com/ghostbusters-jillian-holtzmann-kate-mckinnon

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Use the Join tool for that.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e8ma7ojf9fkm1yf/JOINTOOL.MP4?dl=0