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MRS. ARNOLD IN CHARGE

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"Let's eat!" announces Tom late on a recent Saturday afternoon. He's big but noticeably trimmed down-there's 100 pounds less of him than there used to be- and he's wearing shorts and a turquoise Lacoste-type shirt, a gold-and- diamond wedding ring, and a Major Gold wristwatch. A motion machine, he likes to keep busy: knees jiggle, fingers wiggle, feet flex. "We're gonna eat while we talk to ya. Is that okay, do ya mind?" he asks, swinging his 6'2" frame into a chair and zeroing in on a chicken cutlet. "I'm starved," says his wife, 5'4" and dieting. In a white Lycra miniskirt and black over-blouse, with bare legs, white sandals, and two Extremely Expensive diamond rings on small, round hands, Roseanne is 60 pounds lighter these days than she was in last year's famous fleshy photos. Earlier in the day, the couple endured additional tattoo work on their anatomy-an ongoing Arnold project, like home renovation. Roseanne had a flower added to a complicated bouquet on her spine; she's in pain. Tom had white and red detail added to a large blue Star of David on his right pec. He feels fine. ("I wanted it since I turned Jewish," he says, referring to his recent conversion, at his wife's request.) Tom: You're getting another big flower Roseanne: If I live through it. Tom: You've had four children, honey. Roseanne: Yeah, it's about that bad, too, on the spine. I had to do my Lamaze breathing Now Roseanne browses through a plastic cradle of baby carrots, noshing like America noshes, wiping her fingers on paper towels and reading the Sunday- supplement gossip pages. Which inevitably contain gossip about Roseanne Arnold. And lordy, the woman has a knack for making headlines. Even as this heartland couple in diamonds and tattoos grazes on take-out food in their serious cook's kitchen, supermarket shoppers throughout America are coming face-to-face with Roseanne on the cover of People. Even as they pick at sprouts and drink diet Coke, Roseanne's sitcom-defying prime-time series, Roseanne, now into its fourth season on ABC, is tenaciously No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings-funnier, stronger, more fully realized, and better than ever. Roseanne loves to confound her fans as well as her detractors. People love the character she plays (but her peers have never nominated her for an Emmy, not as an actor, writer, producer, or creator). People hate the woman who scratched and spit and shrieked through the National Anthem two summers ago (but love her outrageousness). They think she's a wise observer of domestic reality (but are put off by her antics with her new husband). They're offended by her (but titillated). They're fond of her (but embarrassed). They want her to be a certain way, and then she goes and is another. Roseanne has made a career out of being what she calls "nuts"-shoving at the boundaries of what she sees as uptight good taste. But now, perhaps for the first time, she is learning to distinguish the self-destructively nuts from the creatively nuts. Maybe. Roseanne: I certainly don't want to be normal. Ya know, we went to this Tom Jones concert the other night. It was in Vegas, so it was, like, a totally dead audience, really old, so we were dancin' and havin' a great time. And some old lady yells out, "Sit down, Roseanne! SIT DOWN!" You know, that kind of real judgmental, horrible

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