It took a couple of hours' worth of searching through old issues of The New Yorker, but I found it. My Mother and I had posited that since I got the tattoo done when I went to visit bishopjoey in San Francisco in the early months of 1995, and I found the drawing when I was visiting my parents in Pittsburgh at some point (obviously) before then, then it was most likely that I saw the drawing over Thanksgiving 1994. This may be the case, but even though I started looking at New Yorkers from September/October/November 1994, I finally found the cat in an issue from several months before: The March 14, 1994 issue.

Are you paying attention? Somebody write this down: The March 14, 1994 issue of The New Yorker. Don't let me lose it again!

I was so excited when I finally found the damn thing, I threw my arms up in a gesture of victory. Thankfully I remembered that I was in a library and stifled the urge to hoot and holler.

Original design: FOUND!!! YAAY!!!!