My expectations were pretty high, simply because I’ve loved her for so long, but she exceeded them. The New York Times calls her wit "brut-dry," and I think that’s perfect. It’s so dry, it leaves you thirsty for more. She’s had a remarkable life, and she sees it clearly. I hope she continues to share the view with the rest of us.

(The Times has a clip of the show here.)

Wishful Drinking includes a riff about Fisher’s recent struggle with the mean things people say online, particularly about "fat" women. I got to thinking about this after the show (while walking the dog, which is always a good setting for analyzing pop culture. And poop culture, incidentally.). It seems to me that if the camera adds 10 pounds, the stage takes off 10 pounds — or, more accurately, it turns a blind eye, emphasizing mirth over girth and preferring substance to surface.

And that means I’ve had the privilege of seeing some phenomenal women onstage — women Hollywood deems too old, too fat, too whatever. Here are some of my recent favorites:

Janet McTeer

Even theater critics can’t help but remark on McTeer’s "unfeminine" features — they use adjectives like "strapping" to describe her, which of course just makes me think of "strapping" as a verb. Followed by a preposition. Anyway, she’s simultaneously beautiful and handsome, and I’m glad we get to witness that on stage (and occasionally in Emmy-winning miniseries). Her performance in Mary Stuart was breathtaking, especially when her character (the imprisoned should-be queen) tasted freedom and rain.

Stockard Channing

Channing played the MILF to end all MILFs in Pal Joey. The show itself wasn’t that great, but Channing oozed sex and wisdom — and she hasn’t been allowed to do that on film since The Business of Strangers.

Allison Janney

Yes, Hollywood still loves Janney, but mostly as a character actress. In 9 to 5, she was the undisputed star. Not too tall, not too old, and perfectly suited (suited! get it?) to run a corporation.

Tyne Daly

Well, I haven’t actually seen this one yet, but Daly is part of the rotating cast of Nora and Delia Ephron’s Love, Loss and What I Wore. I have been in love with her since 1982, and she’s getting more and more gorgeous by the year. In Love, Loss, she plays the same character at several different ages, from girlhood on up. Yet Grey’s Anatomy could only see her as a grandmother. Bah.

Martha Plimpton

Forget The Goonies — really, forget them. Plimpton would like you to banish that movie from your mind. She’s done so much since then, and she actually outshined the luminous Stockard Channing in Pal Joey (who knew she could sing that well?!). And a couple of months before that, she played both a mannish Pope Joan and a thwarted working-class adolescent in Top Girls. And again, what did she get to play on Grey’s Anatomy? A long-suffering mom. Please.

Dianne Wiest

She’s a bit of an exception in Hollywood — her plum role on In Treatment has earned her Emmy nods and much respect. But what’s the likelihood of her playing a sensual diva in a film or on TV? That’s what she did off-Broadway, in The Seagull. Sure, she wasn’t quite as good as the Olivier-winning Kristin Scott Thomas, but she was more than equal to the material, not to mention the star quality. The word "prime" comes to mind.

Patti LuPone

Remember LuPone in Life Goes On? Her life has gone on and on — to empyreal heights in Gypsy this past summer. It was so good, I saw it three times, and I’d see it three more if I could. The word "sexy" appeared in many reviews, and she channeled a kind of power and madness that’s rarely seen in female roles on screen. It was almost scary.

There are more where those came from, and I’m looking forward to others in the new Broadway season. And of course there are a few exceptions on film and on TV — Glenn and Meryl are the obvious ones — but it would be difficult to come up with a list like this. I think Carrie Fisher would agree that the stage is the true home of real women. Hollywood prefers sex dolls.

(The Princess Leia sex doll shows up in Wishful Drinking too. Of course!)

I don’t know what it is about Carrie Fisher. Somehow, whenever I see her face, I feel like I’m looking at a long-lost friend. I suppose that’s because I was 6 when I first saw her cinnamon-bun hair. A lot of us feel like we grew up with her — while she was growing up too fast.

I felt that way again this week when I saw Sorority Row, in which Fisher plays a shotgun-wielding sorority house mother. As Carrie’s recent blog post makes clear, she may not be as lithe as she used to be, but she’s way more badass. There’s a great moment in Sorority Row in which a privileged coed has just told Carrie’s character an obvious fib. Carrie expertly pulls back the slide on her sawed-off shotgun (whee!), aims the gun squarely at the girl’s face, and says, flatly, "Lie to me again."

A different shotgun scene

So awesome. I think I found it especially gratifying because when I was a kid, I was always losing the stupidly dainty gun that went with my Princess Leia action figure. That never would have happened if she’d had a shotgun.

Sorority Row is surprisingly entertaining overall (and Rumer Willis can actually act. Who knew?!). I think a series of small parts in horror movies is a great way to enjoy the sunset of one’s film career — just ask Margot Kidder — but of course Carrie’s overall career is far from fading. The day before seeing Sorority Row, I bought my tickets for Wishful Drinking on Broadway. I can’t wait to bask in her bracing wit for a couple of hours.

Carrie’s face often makes me feel like I know her, but her words resonate even more — she says things I wish I’d said. I devoured her books Postcards From the Edge and Surrender the Pink the minute they were published, and though I haven’t read Wishful Drinking yet, I’m sure it too offers droll insights tinged with just enough misery to make you love her company. One of her Postcards observations seems to have become her lifelong motto: "Instant gratification takes too long." You can even get that on a T-shirt.

And wouldn’t Liz Lemon love this Wishful Drinking T-shirt?

And speaking of Postcards From the Edge, I’m still thrilled that Meryl Streep played the Carrie role — even if that later proved to be too much for Carrie to live up to.

Whether she’s squaring off with spoiled sorority girls or offering her observations on her long, strange trip through fame and fortune, Carrie Fisher gets to the heart of things.

I’m so glad she’s still speaking her mind!

One last thing, about that golden bikini: Carrie recently revealed that it was even more revealing than we thought:

… it had the tendency to make my now not-so-private privates quite public. Especially for the actor standing behind Jabba playing Bobba Fett … to put it simply and weirdly, [he] could see beyond my yawning, plastic bikini bottoms all the way to Florida.

Oh dear. No wonder that scene has always made me nervous — put the Hoth snowsuit back on, Leia! It makes you look kinda butch.