Running mate

At the same time, he is raising his eyes, as he can, from the daily pleasure of trying to redevelop and manage the city of Oakland. "Pleasure," yes, that's the mayor's word. There's another campaign looming into sight, a fresh set of possibilities, more excitement, old cages to rattle in that other town that once was his domain, Sacramento.

As for a honeymoon with his bride?

Why naturally, the mayor of Oakland, who is running for attorney general of California, will honeymoon on the campaign stump.

His marriage proposal to fellow lawyer and former Gap Inc. executive Anne Gust included some Brown-esque version of the standard line, will you be my wife? It also included a not-so-everyday understanding that husband and wife would also be candidate and campaign manager. The two of them think alike, you see.

The wedding will be held June 18 in the rotunda of a restored building facing City Hall, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) presiding.

Meanwhile, Brown has a few surplus pounds to run off along the shore of Oakland's Lake Merritt so he can fit into a new wedding suit. Invitations need to be sent out. Dharma, the tirelessly friendly Labrador, is asking for attention. The Palm Treo in Brown's pocket is beeping persistently with calls and e-mails and schedule reminders. Also, he's got the new Jerry Brown interactive blog to feed. His reading list is topped by "Law and Revolution, II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition." And before everyone gets carried away with things upcoming, he would like to show you around Oakland to see what he's been up to, so get your walking shoes on, you'll be staying up late.

No wonder: When Edmund G. Brown Jr. finally got around to signing up for Medicare last year, he was already 12 months beyond the standard age of 65.

For Jerry Brown, former governor, former California secretary of state, former Los Angeles Community College board member, former chairman of the state Democratic Party, former three-time candidate for president of the United States, former volunteer at Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying and Destitute in Calcutta, these are the best of times.

'She is very alive'

California has welcomed any number of celebrities into politics; Jerry Brown is the only bona fide celebrity produced from within the state's political process.

For that reason, and no other really, the pathways of his life and the workings of his vigorous intellect have been public fascinations for more than three decades.

So let's begin with the personal:

He proposed marriage on the evening of March 15. It was Anne Gust's 47th birthday. She has never married; neither has Brown.

"Geniuses think alike," says the 67-year-old politician with a smile resembling a sophomore's after catching the eye of the homecoming queen. "It doesn't take long to come to the same conclusion."

That is, provided you think that being together for 15 years isn't very long for preliminaries.

"It was her birthday. I thought this would be a good time."

"Not every woman would be willing to live at 27th and Telegraph in the hardware department of Sears," he continues -- his downtown apartment being a loft conversion in a once-abandoned Sears building, located in a neighborhood that has not forgotten its grimy and dangerous past.

For that matter, not every woman would be willing to live with Jerry Brown.

"That's another story." Again, he grins.

"She has a quick and agile mind. She is a voracious reader. She is very alive -- aliveness, it's a quality."

Plainly, this is not a case of opposites attracting.

Gust, who left her job on Friday as executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Gap, met Brown through an acquaintance in 1990 when they both lived in San Francisco's Pacific Heights.

From the start, their partnership became practical as well as romantic. She was the attorney who defended him in a lawsuit as state party chairman. In the case, Brown claimed the right to limit party members to speaking for no longer than one minute at meetings. Brevity, as Brown followers may remember, is thought of as a virtue. He was sued by a man who claimed a right to talk longer.

Gust and Brown prevailed.

She is relaxing in the couple's loft now -- an airy and bright corner apartment that looks straight into the rough core of downtown. "People want to know, did he get on his knee?

"No."

But don't entirely count him out in the romance department, either. For about the third time in their relationship, Brown set the mood by cooking dinner: chicken and peas. "The fact that he cooked was a miracle."

She flashes a girlish grin to match his. Even apart, they seem to light each other up.

There are other changes too.